Is it immoral to do illegal drugs?
If you are not choosing it over responsibilities, and it's not a financial burden, is it really bad?
My main drug in question is marijuana.
Would it be more immoral to lie to people that "it makes them crazy, rapists, and killers?"
My main drug in question is marijuana.
Would it be more immoral to lie to people that "it makes them crazy, rapists, and killers?"
Comments (1080)
Here is a link for keeping pot illegal.
https://www.rivermendhealth.com/resources/marijuana-legalization-led-use-addiction-illegal-market-continues-thrive/
I am not sure I can agree with that argument because my grandchildren have consumed a lot of pot since Oregon made it legal but when they wanted jobs that require drug testing, they quit using pot and no one is aware of any addiction problems. That is, they did not experience physical distress. I do not believe it is addiction unless one's body has a bad reaction to not having the addictive substance.
However, I am concerned for younger people, pot could interfere with maturation. Video games might also interfere with maturation? When we do something to avoid negative feelings that does not resolve the cause of the negative feelings, we can become dependent on any substance- pot, carbs, sugar, or behavior- isolation, reading, playing computer games that changes how we feel. This would be a negative habit, not exactly an addiction that can lead to death.
Because pot has been linked to improving bone strength, I wish we would go beyond making it legal to making it a medicine that a doctor can prescribe and our medical insurance would pay. We are half way there and this really stupid! We can pay a doctor $100 to prescribe us pot, but this is not one of the doctors our medical insurance will pay and even though the pot is used for a medical purpose, the insurance doesn't pay for it, but medical insurance pays for some really, really awful drugs and the one given to make our bones stronger can destroy our bones. How many legal drugs do we have that can destroy our livers or kidneys? We are still in the dark ages when it comes to sane medical care.
It does ;) But seriously morality considers your action with regards to others before yourself. If your pot smoking negatively effects others then there is a case that it may be 'immoral'. If you are only smoking a bit then don't confuse illegal with immoral. Legality is a question of geography in this instance (I know that morality is also a matter of geography but if you are in the states the moral code doesn't vary from state to state like the legality of Mj).
Where any activity, be it smoking or eating cannabis, playing video games, or watching shopping channels on television, or anything else begins to dominate one's life it becomes morally problematic.
Yesterday, for the first time in about 30 years, I got high (on edible cannabis). I was definitely impaired, but since I stayed inside listening to music, I put neither myself nor others at risk. Using cannabis is illegal where I used it, but not where I bought it. I find it difficult to judge the event as any more morally significant than having a couple of beers or taking the dog out for her daily walk.
Pot has been linked to improving just about every ailment from which people suffer. Clearly some or many of the claimed benefits are not valid. Cannabis makes many people "feel better". Nothing wrong with feeling good or feeling better, but that feeling may not be the same as being cured or having a significant improvement.
The trouble with pot as medicine is that formal research into cannabis benefits was banned for a long time. Now, amateurs can gather real evidence, and some claims of benefit made by amateur researchers and users are probably true. [During the early years of AIDS amateur researchers gathered very useful information about various pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical medications. They tracked research, the conducted some experimental therapy, and published results. They provided something definite where there was nothing much.]
Anyway, I usually try and take a step back and ask the question, why are people taking these drugs for recreational purposes? Is it because they are curious or lack a meaningful life? Perhaps, the answer is psychological, and thus that needs to be addressed through the proper channels instead of self-inducing psychotic states or bliss. Fortunately, we don't live in a Brave New World, and don't need 'soma' to cope with the mundane and boredom that life may have.
My two pennies.
Oh?
Do you beg to differ? Ketamine is going to become the new "soma", mark my words. It really is crazy that we prescribe Ritalin or amphetamine salts to kids. I have ADHD, so I would know...
Totally worth the wait.
This ignores the accepted distinction between malum prohibitum (wrongs by virtue of statute) and malum in se (wrongs in themselves). The former might be that the tax rate is 28% or the speed limit is 45. The latter would be that murder is illegal. Should a legislature decide the speed limit is to be 46, the law would be just as moral as before. If murder is declared legal, though, the law would be immoral.
However, there are ethical issues related to illegal drugs, such as addiction, risk of harm, and the black market. And those issues are problematic. In contexts such as these, the answer can change.
No, that wouldn't be immoral, and they can be taken if one accepts the risks. My life, my choice.
Quoting Wallows
Maybe a lot of drug takers lack a meaningful life, but it only reveals your prejudice to ponder that question specifically of drug takers. Would you question the meaningfulness of the lives of those who pursue other recreational activities - skiing, sailing, horse riding, and so on?
What prejudice? I merely am asking what is the reason one has to resort to XYZ to have a fun time?
There it is again. Resort?
I don't know, there really isn't anything meaningful about taking meth or indulging in crack. Please keep in mind that I live in California, where weed has only recently been legalized, so I'm pretty open-minded with regards to smoking weed. I don't smoke it because I value what my psyche has to tell me at night when I dream, and weed interferes with that. I also get weed anxiety, so the high from THC is unpleasant for me. I'm all for CBD though.
The harder stuff is iffy in my book.
Well, yeah, "resort". What else do you think I mean or ought to say?
In your opinion.
Quoting Wallows
The harder stuff is more risky. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's worse. Is skiing more iffy than bowling? The former is more adventurous, the experience more exhilarating. These things are about what risks you're willing to take for recreational purposes and about personal preference. Maybe you're just more of a bowler.
It's an example of loaded language. It has a negative connotation. You could have chosen a more neutral term.
I think, there is a consensus among people, and even users themselves, that smoking crack, doing meth or doing heroin does one no amount of good.
Quoting S
No, I don't think it's a matter of preference if that's something you're trying to imply. There's nothing good in doing any of the substances I mentioned in the above. Not even once.
It's loaded for good reason, though.
That it's a popular opinion doesn't mean that it's anything more than that. I'm entirely on board with those who would urge extreme caution with those kind of drugs because of that risk. But that's all it is: a risk. Not a prophecy, guarantee, or foregone conclusion.
Quoting Wallows
You're confusing your own opinion for something more than that. You are not sufficiently equipped to determine that no one can get anything good out of it. You would have to know details about the lives and circumstances of so many people in so many situations that it's just not possible.
But, what's the point, again? To fill a hole in one's soul? To escape from reality for a brief while? Again, it's a psychological and sociological issue here.
Quoting S
What medical application does snorting cocaine or doing meth have? None. So, let it be prohibited is what I think is the best option.
That has nothing to do with drugs, specifically. You could ask the same questions about any other recreational activity. The clue is in the name. You're just revealing your bias again.
Quoting Wallows
What medical application does skiing or sailing have?
Quoting Wallows
Yes, and for that same reason, let's ban skiing, sailing, abseiling, skydiving, rock climbing, scuba diving, racing, rugby, bowling, reading, sewing, playing video games, going to the cinema, discussing philosophy...
No.
Is it immoral for any drugs to be illegal?
Yes.
This isn't even comparable. Doing heroin, meth, cocaine, and other drugs doesn't even fall in the same category as "skiing, sailing, abseiling, skydiving, rock climbing, scuba diving, racing, rugby, bowling, reading, sewing, playing video games, going to the cinema, discussing philosophy..."
Moral stances are personal dispositions/"feelings" about the acceptability of interpersonal behavior that one considers more significant than etiquette.
If the category is "consensual activities" it does, Alex
However, it must be understood that some people can control their urges and can moderate, quite effectively, their intake. These people are rare and so no point in giving them leverage.
The vast majority of drug users are slaves to their addiction. So, it is this that we must prevent or cure.
I think it isn't immoral to take drugs but it is immoral to sit on your hands and do nothing to mitigate the problem.
Yeah it is, and you obviously need come up with more stringent criteria than "medical application".
Quoting Wallows
Recreational activities. People do stuff for recreation, including taking drugs. Do you have a credible objection or not? Because thus far you haven't presented one.
If you really adhere to Emotivism, you'll have to explain how it is at all rational to engage in ethical debate, considering you're admitting that your arguments are only valid to you. If when you say murder is "bad," you mean it's bad to you, but maybe not to me, just like I might think chocolate ice cream tastes good to me but bad to you, then it hardly makes sense for us to debate whether murder (or chocolate ice cream) is actually bad. I'm not engaging in the meta-ethical debate of whether morality is ultimately objective or subjective, but I am saying it makes no sense to present logical bases for a topic you're declaring emotional.
The problem is that you don't articulate a specific principle here that determines morality from immorality. If you are deriving a moral principal and declaring that purposeless behavior is immoral per se, then that will have to be applied to other instances other than drugs, meaning we might end up declaring things like skiing and dancing immoral.
I'm not really sure why we're reinventing the wheel here though and trying to form moral theories from scratch. Maybe we can start with some time honored solutions like Utilitarianism or Kantianism. Otherwise we're just going to hack away at our own half-baked theories and slowly watch them collapse through this Socratic dialogue.
People should be free to harm themselves from smoking, drinking, drug taking, eating too much or too little, piercing or tattooing themselves, partaking in sports, and so on. It's not a global disaster unless these things are forced upon us, which they're not. And if engaging in any of these kind of activities becomes a problem, which it won't necessarily, then there are things that people can do about that, like stopping or getting help.
Quoting TheMadFool
Loads of people drink, smoke weed, or take cocaine on a more casual basis without any major problems and without being "slaves".
Quoting TheMadFool
There's loads of help available for those for whom it has become a problem without any need of me getting in on the act.
I suspect for many, pot is about not having a sense of having a meaningful life. But I should talk? :gasp: I am addicted to coffee. I like feeling alert and driven to accomplish something. Especially not in my later years, life seems very short I don't want to loosing time feeling like a zombie. My struggle is to feel full of energy and not like I want to take a nap. :lol:
Moral, coffee is a better stimulant than pot. :lol:
In my old age, I am very strongly opposed to the idea that one does not need to consider anyone but one's self. I have seen what addiction or habitual use of pot does to families and children and it is not a pleasant reality. It is an ugly reality that gets passed on generation after generation. Addicted people become the center of a lot of painful drama involving many people. It is not as simple as being an individuals decision to do as s/he pleases. I think we have experienced far too much self-indulgence and a sad of lack of a concept of family, social and political duties. The moral is addictive substances can lead to a lot of avoidable human pain and suffering for generations and we need to stop denying that.
However, pot is likely one of the best medicines nature has given us and hemp has many good purposes. We need to be more rational about growing and using marijuana.
Certain chemicals lead to agency deconstruction-reconstruction, which isn't a bad thing at all. Entheogens are like teachers with a common message of renewal and pruning the Will of slag (after having shown what is closed to the habitually other-organized sense of agency, the mode of agency which rears against apprehension of the unconscious; we always have structure agentially, yet it can get caught up in a slavish external locus of control and make us unaware of the liminality between self and other; renewal, then, is simply honest regaining of autonomy).
Said chemicals, classic psychedelics, lead one away from the addiction model at the center of the market society, consumerism, etc. If you look into the default mode network of the brain, one of the main things you'll learn is that reward seeking behavior, not limited to drug use, but including gambling, work, consumerism, eating, sex, exercise, video games, the latest technology, etc. (many other forms of addiction besides), is what leads to a lack of mindfulness, which in turn may lead to delusions and immoral acts.
As to pot, it may not be great for those who place a premium on auto-psychoanalysis through dream work. It commonly precludes lucid dreaming and memory of dreams. Smoking weed sometimes makes me feel too much like Rip Van Winkle...causing very deep, maybe too deep, sleep. For people with insomnia or parasomnias, it would be a great herb to take some form of.
The issue of drugs and the extant authoritarian, punishment-obsessed (Jehovah-style), law is a farce, anyways, it is so concerning the treatment of naturally occurring (found or discovered) substances by the law. This said, hobby chemistry used to be a freer, thus more liberating, pursuit before the war on drugs campaign retarded socio-cultural openness. You and I are schedule one seeing as our bodies are chemical laboratories. That's right, our bodies produce chemicals that have been made illegal by the intensely confounded legislative system. Cannabanoids and DMT (naturally synthesized by the human body)...make us illegal. It's the statutes, the rules, which as you can see, are often morally corrupt and unmoored in any wholistic and salubrious contextual order.
I agree it is not so simple, and it is like Thomas Aquintas (sp?) was getting at. Nothing in excess, but again anything can be taken to excess and drugs seem to be an easier spot to become excessive in. Excessive exercisers don't really make the headlines. I think people really don't like the lifestyle that accompanies illegal drugs than the drugs themselves.
While I agree with that, I would say that it is as simple as not legally prohibiting persons' decisions. That is highly immoral.
I wouldn't say they're valid to me, either. Validity is about truth. Moral stances are not the sorts of things that are true or false.
"Moral debate" is purely a practical matter of trying to persuade people to not treat others (and create laws for others) in a way that you do not prefer, in a way that you disapprove of. It's akin to, say, being in a band and trying to persuade your bandmates to write or play a particular section of a song you're working on a particular way.
A police officer told me once that he technically could bust me for anything, there is a lot of legality just crossing the street.
I'm very pro tactics like jury nullification, too.
Then the entirety of your argument would be "don't murder because I prefer people not murder." That doesn't seem at all persuasive. If you interject other reasons, like "don't murder because human life has intrinsic value" that might be more persuasive, but it'd be disingenuous because the basis you provided had nothing at all to do with the reason why you believed murder was wrong. The reason you feel murder is wrong is because you don't prefer it. And, of course, should you prefer it, it would be right,
If though you have an underlying principle that justifies your preferences, then you need to state that principle because that principle is the primary cause of your moral judgments, not your unwashed preference.
No, it isn't. There's a whole art to persuasive rhetoric. You're going to tailor it to the person (or the people) you're trying to persuade, a la the traditional sense of ad hominem. And yeah, it's "disingenuous" on your view, but that hardly matters. The goal is to persuade others.
No, but what's the relevance of that (aside from not understanding a common idiom, which seems to be symptomatic around here.)
Yet you can't persuade anyone who has even an elementary understanding of your position, which is that you'll say whatever it is you need to to obtain a result, including offering entirely fraudulent reasons for your position as long as you think it might pacify them. You can't admit to disingenuousness without consequence.
Great understanding of the rhetoric of persuasion. You have it all figured out.
I like how you gamble on the idea that I've never persuaded anyone morally, as if I'm maybe a 20-year-old who is speaking purely hypothetically a la stuff I just made up now. You sure didn't stick your foot in your mouth there.
I don't think that's what I'm trying to imply here. My point exactly, if you care, is showing that drug taking isn't pragmatic if you want a framework to work with. If cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin have no utility in the long run, and that money can be saved to going to the movies, where you can save the experience in your mind, then that's the better alternative in my book.
My own (past) drug habits, were the source for me talking about medical benefits here. I have ADHD and used to self-medicate with various stimulants. In the long run, they were detrimental to my health and welfare. So, if you need a drug, then go through the proper channels to obtain them for your needs. I really don't think drug taking is only about satisfying a curious urge. I tend to think they are mostly derived from some psychological issue.
You can't take a judgmental high ground when you didn't even understand the idiom.
He was wrong, as are you if you think likewise. It's not difficult to convincingly argue against.
I don't get what you're trying to say here. Is it that you disagree or agree? You've indicated both as far as I'm aware. And nobody is a nutjob for making mistakes. And drug taking is a mistake that can be forgiven if done once; but, not more than that.
I disagree, and I don't think there's much more to what you're doing than expressing an opinion or a preference. Any apparent agreement was sarcasm. And it's neither a mistake nor requiring of forgiveness, unless the circumstances beyond what you've described make it so.
So, on what grounds do you disagree? That satisfying an urge (again what's the urge all about here?) to take a drug isn't morally impermissible? I already stated that some drugs can be tried once, especially psychedelics, which are non-habit forming. Though, I would urge someone to try and do it in controlled settings, always. Although... I've read of horror stories about some people becoming paranoid for prolonged periods of time due to them, so again "controlled-settings".
You seem to disagree for sake of disagreement (hurray freedom!). If that's so, then I don't have much to add to what I already said.
Do you agree with his stance? If so, present the argument, and I'll address it. But I have no interest in arguing against Socrates for the sake of it.
Yep.
Quoting Wallows
I don't agree that they can't be taken more than once.
Quoting Wallows
No, I disagree because I disagree. I'm just being honest. Would you rather I lie or kept silent? Well tough.
Fine, then. How much is enough? Once, twice, a hundred times? I think, that once you get the message to put the phone down, as they used to say back in the 60's.
Non sequitur is an argumentative fallacy. I made a comment. I didn't forward an argument.
Do you actually expect me to give you a number? What's enough can differ from one person to the next, and you can't really give it a precise number. But I have a rough idea of my limits. I know when I've done too much or not enough.
I think that's true in most cases, but pragmatism isn't necessarily a virtue. We do all sorts of things that have no utility. An ethic of pragmatism sounds pretty dull.Quoting Wallows
It's probably true that a lot of drug use is self-medication, but I don't think it's fair to say that every sip of alcohol one takes is evidence that the person needs to seek professional help along with properly prescribed medication. There are many who live their lives taking various recreational drugs throughout their lives (not me, by the way) and live happy lives.
OK, but we live in a world where we usually have some responsibilities and duties to perform, like work or education. Habit forming drugs, even cannabis to take your example of talking about pot, has been shown to lead to poor academic performance. Don't take my word for it, just look at some statistics. I'd be fine with smoking pot, after your 25, due to the sensitivity of the developing brain. I'd be fine with taking LSD once a year to recollect on how it went by in a different mindset. I guess, what I'm getting at is moderation is key here. And, in regards to non-habit forming drugs, then that's fine. Stuff that I mentioned, like heroin, meth, or cocaine, are habit-forming drugs, and ought to be left out of the discussion. At least, I have no idea, what use they have, either spiritual or practical.
Usually, you find that fact out the hard way, with habit-forming drugs. Or your closest friend tells you to need to sign up for rehab over your benzodiazepine habit. If you're lucky, your family will notice a change in behavior and they might chime in also.
Do you agree with him in that respect or not? If so, then I'm against you. I told you that I'm not interested in simply arguing against Socrates. And why haven't you presented this argument in defence of your position, whether you came up with it yourself or borrowed it from someone else?
Yeah, but it's a realistic way to address the issue. Talking about what Kant would have wanted to Jeremy Bentham's satisfied pig doesn't lead us anywhere in the discussion, and we might as well talk with a wall or a book.
Quoting Hanover
Yeah; but, if you asked the few of them that don't feel addicted to them if they could live their lives without the drugs, then they'd probably say yes, also. So, save the money!
American Revolution happened on that basis.
Yes, finding out the hard way, but that doesn't have to be the end of the world. You can learn a lesson and adjust appropriately going forward. It doesn't have to be rehab, addiction, or an alarming change in behaviour. That's just resorting to more extreme circumstances in an attempt to bolster your argument.
So, I have no idea what is your point here. I want to have my cake and eat it too? Usually, I don't know people addicted to drugs that can moderate their use over long periods of time. You have extraneous factors contributing to one's demise, like stress from a job that exacerbates drug use, or tolerance, or responsibilities conflicting with one's drug use.
Maybe in a perfect world, you get to have your cake and eat it too; but, I don't see this happening unless you're fabulously rich or some other factors.
Drugs can enslave people and when they become addicted they loose control of their lives and can unintentionally hurt others. That is why they are controlled or illegal.
If a potentially harmful substance is made legal it absolutely should be taxed to cover the problems that can result from the substance.
With freedoms, there must be responsibilities. We seem to be at a time in history when people want freedom but not responsibility?
I follow laws if: (a) I agree with the law, or (b) the risks of getting caught breaking it are too great.
Why won't you simply say whether or not you agree with him? I've asked you directly twice now. At first you seemed to agree, but now it looks like you're the one who is backing away. You won't even present the argument, expecting me to look it up instead. I disagree with Socrates inasmuch as I disagree with the conclusion, provided it is as you say. And I disagree with it for obvious reasons, which are essentially no different to the reasons other participants in the discussion have given. There's no good reason to think that there are or could be no unjust laws. Examples can be provided if need be, but that really shouldn't be necessary. And I have no duty to follow unjust laws. Why would I? Do you have an argument for that or not? I don't want to be wasting my time here.
@Athena "With freedoms, there must be great responsibilities" "We want freedom and not responsibility"
I guess it's a generational thing, but I'm very responsible and really care about doing right by society. I have joined the military, been to college, help out a methed out mother of 4, and have helped other homeless people and drug addicts. I am giving.
I knew what sexual abuse was at age 4. Where was the responsible generation before me on this one?
But policies and social pressures:
College was crammed down our throats and now 30% of people have a bachelors or higher and it's the new high school diploma WITH debt. Middle skill jobs are the most to go.
Corporations are squeezing more time out of us for less pay. Employers want pre-packaged employees.
Education is hit hard by moral relativism. I'm not alone on this. they aren't teaching us Civics anymore. It's changed.
Politics need I say more? Lobbying. Money is speech. Occupy Wall street (had some good premises) The border. Politicians do dumb things.
The school shootings too and the government WANTS to BAN guns. Obama shed a tear for it.
And you want me to NOT smoke pot?
What don't you understand about it? I don't think I was saying anything particularly hard to grasp.
Quoting Wallows
No. There's nothing incompatible with taking drugs and doing so in a responsible enough manner.
Quoting Wallows
We weren't talking specifically about drug addicts, so that's moving the goalposts.
Quoting Wallows
You can have a bunch of problems ranging from those more manageable to those more severe, but don't kid yourself into believing that it'll inevitably lead you to ruin, because it doesn't have to be like that. That's just slippery slope scaremongering nonsense. I'm not quite sure whether it's stemming from naivety or whether you just have some axe to grind.
Quoting Wallows
A perfect world isn't necessary, and I'm not arguing in favour of having your cake and eating it - that's just your misinterpretation. Perhaps you could explain why you think that that's what I was suggesting.
I'm a little slow. What was your point again?
What's wrong with my original wording?
So, in my own words, you're the whole premise is that it's immoral to prevent one from being able to indulge in any drug because it's limiting one's freedom?
No, I'm not arguing in favour of having no restraints whatsoever. I'm in favour of self-restraint and intervention when the situation calls for it. I'm also in favour of greater freedom than what the current laws are designed to curtail, and I don't agree with things like your rule about only trying a drug once, and I don't agree with the picture you're painting in terms of applicability to the general category of drug users rather than the smaller group of drug users with the problems you describe.
But, how? Drugs are addictive? How do you moderate their use on an individual level?
Some drugs are more addictive than others, some people are more likely to become addicted than others, some people can cope better than others, and there's a whole spectrum of factors that play into that. But it's just will power to a large extent, which isn't all that complicated. You basically just exert your will to override a desire. We've all had that experience. You don't have to say yes or pick up the phone and make that call or whatever every single time. But if you switch from the broader category of drug users to the narrower category of drug addicts, then obviously that will have an effect, and how the topic is addressed will likely differ for most people, myself included. I wouldn't give the exact same answer for each change of scenario.
So, you agree that heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine have no use to people due to their addictive nature? One doesn't just walk into Mordor unnoticed. It's hell to use those drugs even once.
Environment plays a huge role on dependence. Learned helplessness is another thing too.
It's easy to find a copy of [I]Crito[/I]. It's tedious to go looking through it searching for the argument you're referring to, then breaking it down into key premises and a conclusion. If it's your argument, as in the argument that you're appealing to in defence of your position, then it is your responsibility to present it if you really want a response from me. Otherwise it's an inconvenience that I'm inclined to deal with by adding it to a waiting list of things to do. And it's effectively a fold from you if you're not willing and able to present an argument in support of your position.
Quoting tim wood
I could go by recollection or go back over it, but neither prospect is very appealing to me.
Anyway, I was unfamiliar with the term "nullification" in this context, which is understandable considering that it's a term relating to the U.S. Constitution, and I'm from the U.K., which doesn't have a constitution and goes by a different system with different terminology.
I wouldn't necessarily advocate for revolution. That's an extreme measure. My first thought would be that reform is what would be required. And it would be utter poppycock to call an advocation of reform destructive to the state, especially without even knowing any specific details. Under the assumption that the state is indeed in need of reform, it would be highly misleading to call the implementation of that reform destructive, because it would be a restructuring, and the end result would be an improvement.
No. Are you kidding me? That would require quite a big leap in the opposite direction from what I've actually been saying.
Quoting Wallows
Do you know what? Based on that response, I don't think that this is going to be a constructive exchange. I think maybe I'll just leave you and your ingrained preconceptions be.
Crito shows me to stand up for what I believe in even if it means death. I'm willing to bet Socrates would still "Corrupt the youth". He still held his opinions.
Am I understanding it correctly?
I think it is universally accepted that drugs that are habit-forming are bad stuff. Let's call a spade a spade, not a gardening tool?
1. Is doing anything illegal immoral?
2. Is marijuana consumption immoral?
1. Typically in democratic societies, laws are created and enforced by society for society. In some ways laws can be thought of as an agreement between individuals in a society and the state/government. So if something has been deemed unhelpful or harmful to a society and its values to the extent it has been written into law, then it must be immoral to commit acts of civil disobedience in a democracy where it is assumed there are peaceful and constructive ways to contest law...right?
Well yes and no.
For civil disobedience to be considered immoral you would have to at least assume there was no bias in democracy however, with many first world democracies being a result of colonialism, the foundations of our current day laws are already biased. So as has been the case with cultural revolutions, be they race, gender, or class related, civil disobedience is sometimes the only way for the minority to be heard.
For something to have moral value, more than one sentient being needs to be present otherwise we're left with the moral equivalent of the proverb "if a tree falls in the woods with noone to hear it, does it make a sound."
So, from the viewpoint of civic duty - no you don't always have to follow the law to be moral, but are you not following the law in order to achieve a greater good? If you're using marijuana privately and noone knows about it, does it matter?
2. Marijuana is a psychotropic drug which alters brain activity. On a scale of intensity I'd put this substance on the 'mid to low' end of the scale. I think like other substances that alter the biochemistry of people, the morality of use is context dependent. Like Alcohol in certain amounts at specific occasions seems to be ok, in contrast large amounts too often leads to anti-social behaviour, dysfunction and even permanent physical damage/death. With Marijuana I think if you have reasonable amounts, at reasonable intervals and you can still function well in your roles (as a family member, parent, student, employee etc) then it is fine. I'd link Morality with responsibility for substance taking. If your substance isn't negatively impacting on the quality of your life and those around you, then I think it is morally acceptable to break the law and fight for legalisation should there be proven benefits of taking the substance. If your habit is out of control and you become a burden on society then I think it becomes immoral to continue to take the substance and it would be immoral to take at any point after it has been established you have a problem.
Yes of course. I'm very pro-subversion. The kind of person I don't want is someone who'll follow a law they don't agree with simply because it's a law. I'm not saying any law is a law simply to be a law (and it's ridiculous that anyone would read anything I said that way), I'm talking about motivations for following it. I'm talking about "I don't agree with this law, I don't agree with the reasoning for it, I don't agree with the context that the reasoning and law arise in, I think it's a bad idea, I disagree with it morally, etc. , so I'm not going to follow it (unless the risks of getting caught breaking it are too great)" as opposed to someone saying any or all of that yet thinking, "But it is the law after all, so nevertheless I must follow it/I have a moral duty to follow it." The latter is what I don't want.
No. Nothing - or maybe next to nothing - is universally accepted, and this is certainly no exception. What you're talking about is not an uncommon opinion, but not an opinion that is shared by everyone. These opinions can be contagious, but unless you've experienced it yourself, you can never know what it's like to the full extent, and sometimes that experience can turn out to be different in ways than what you might expect or have been lead to believe.
Virtually any drug can count as habit-forming, and not everyone thinks that all drugs are bad stuff. And even the more extreme ones are not universally considered to be bad stuff.
Quoting Wallows
Okay, good idea. So let's be clear that drugs are drugs - a physical substance - and considerations are considerations - something like a judgement in this context. You won't find "badness" under a microscope, no matter how hard you look.
Yeah, I don't think that they're "bad stuff" just because someone has a habit with it. Much more is necessary for me to think that a situation is bad for someone other than the person having whatever drug habit. (And I have tons of prolonged experiences with people with drug habits --I've been a professional musician my whole life.)
Forgive me, but you sound like one of those flat-earthers that insist that their opinion is valid even if science proves them wrong countless times.
Quoting S
It's shared enough by my dealing with hearing about how meth destroyed lives or how heroin broke families apart.
Quoting S
Actually, it's not a personal opinion. I am currently in a substance abuse program at my county clinic to address my own addiction stemming from the fallacious belief that I know what's best for me(!), when in fact it was a really bad idea.
Quoting S
Yeah, sure it's just a drug until consumed, which them alters your mind in unpredictable ways. In ways that might not be in your best interest.
Given that there are flat-Earthers, saying that "The Earth is universally considered to be spheroid" is wrong, isn't it? It doesn't matter how invalid or "proven wrong scientifically" they are. It would still be false to say that "The Earth is universally considered to be spheroid."
Except I said nothing whatsoever about validity. I just rightly corrected your naive assumption that your view is universally accepted. And science hasn't proven me wrong on that point once, let alone countless times. So your comparison makes little sense. It's just an attempt to poison the well.
Quoting Wallows
Yes, it's an opinion shared by many people. I haven't denied that, have I? But providing examples which align with your view doesn't mean that there are no exceptions. In all likelihood there are.
Quoting Wallows
It's a personal opinion based on your own bad experience. That's often a recipe for bias.
Quoting Wallows
It's predictable that taking drugs puts your mental health at greater risk. If you were a doctor, and your patient was showing signs of psychosis, and you were investigating possible causes, then it shouldn't come as a big surprise in connecting all the pieces if you discovered a history of drug abuse.
I will disagree with the notion that ignorance of the law is not a good defense because we move around a lot and when we are new to the community, we have not had time to learn the customs of that community. However, the saying ignorance of the law is not a good defense, applies to unquestionable rules of human decency. You don't rape your neighbor's wife or kill someone for a loaf of bread because everywhere this is a violation of human decency. However, when in Rome one should do as the Romans do. That is to say, a newbie may be forgiven for violating a custom, but not rules of human decency.
When it comes to rules of human decency and an ideal world Cicero said this
He goes on to tell us, no amount of prayers, or sacrifice of animals, or burning of candles will change the consequences of our words and deeds. The consequences will follow the laws of nature, no matter what our god thinks of us. There is no pleasing a god and getting out of trouble. What happens is a result of our own words and deeds.
Laws about smoking pot are more a matter of custom than a law of nature. Getting stoned and driving or operating machinery is violating a law of nature because it does impair our judgment and we should not be driving and operating machinery when we are stoned. But if you are kicking back and have no responsibilities at the moment, I don't think mother nature cares if you get stoned. The moral would be don't get stoned when have responsibilities demanding your attention, but if this is your downtime, you can use it as you choose.
We should tax sugars because they are habit forming and can be very harmful to humans when too much is consumed. I would be delighted if there were no alcohol but that is unlikely, so the next best thing is taxing it enough to pay for all the damage caused by alcohol. It is interesting to see what we have done regarding laws and smoking. I used to smoke at least a pack a day in the comfort of my home, or any place where I wanted to smoke. Now I can't even smoke in my home because I am a renter and would be evicted if I smoked anywhere on the property. I think this is excessive. If I were still smoking the new laws would impinge on my freedom too much.
universal truths? People do drugs, including alcohol, because they want to alter their consciousness. When our consciousness is altered, there is a risk of poor judgment. Is there any time or place in the universe when this is not true?
Whether something is a legal defense isn't a matter of opinion, but is a matter of law. For example,, if I'm from Colorado where pot is legal and I smoke pot in Utah where it's illegal but I don't know it, I can't avoid prosecution by pleading ignorance of the law. It's not a recognized defense. On the other hand, if I shoot you to protect myself from you shooting me, I can avoid prosecution by pleading self-defense because self-defense is a recognized defense.
I think that the first statement is only generally true, not universally true. I can think of exceptions. Some people do drugs out of peer pressure, for example. I agree that when our consciousness is altered, there is a risk of poor judgement. I can't readily think of an exception to that.
@Athena It really does suck that "ignorance doesn't hold up in the court of law" for honestly mistaken people, but people who are dicks can say "I didn't know" and really knew all along. Then those assholes walk around. Making a joke of the courts it would be like one free pass on everything you didn't know about. Which is a gripe of mine with education sometimes... basics of this OUGHT to be taught in high school. It is legal not to but i find it a disservice.
That's not even an argument, is it? Sure, I can hold the belief that Earth is flat; but, that just doesn't make it so.
Great, so maybe we can talk about validity(?) Is it healthy to be a drug user? Again, the consensus seems to point towards a flat 'no'.
"Unhealthy, therefore immoral" is about as good an argument as "Illegal, therefore immoral".
But, we're talking about validity, so arguments can rest now.
Not before they've had a bedtime story and a kiss good night.
Okay... Haha.
No, and it's not meant to be an argument. It's just a comment about what it conventionally refers to for something to be universally held or not.
For sure we live in a society obsessed by being technically correct and I believe this is a serious threat to our liberty. In the past, we cared more about the spirit of the law, and said tyranny is going by the letter of the law. I won't argue that we are not highly concerned about technical correctness today. However, in the past there was room for a judge to say, we will overlook your violation this time, but if it happens again, you will be punished for the infraction and this one too. We relied on the wisdom of judges and didn't make the state the authority over punishments. A wise person isn't wise if s/he does not take ignorance of law into consideration.
This is not the only time in history that a society became overly concerned with technological correctness. I question if this concern for technological is a good thing?
Ignorance of the law cannot be allowed or forbidden by a judge. It just is. From there the ignorance is something to take into consideration before punishing the offender, or not. It is a matter of the degree of the wrong. To break a law because of ignorance of the law, is not the same as intentionally breaking the law.
But I don't think people with educations focused on technology are aware of the difference? It seems to me people educated for technology are pretty black and white. It is right or it is wrong. Trump must stick with right or wrong thinking because that is the level of thinking of his supporters. His followers want a strong man (very narrow-minded), not someone like Obama.
What if it were eating too much? Or gambling? Video Games? Isn't that neglect more so?
Buying from gangs is bad, but if it were legal it would be entrepreneurs. When alcohol was illegal Al Capone made millions and a lot of police died.
It's a whole source of income and byproduct that can help the economy.
The brain chemistry though true, alcohol is the same way and worse it is a poison literally... somebody is fucking wrong here. Either alcohol be illegal or marijuana be legal... It contradicts itself any other way... and I am on the premise of unlimited rights not less.
I mean who will protect us 24/7 from ourselves? Isn't that what freedom is?
Just my thoughts.
Nanny state to the rescue!
What a wonderful philosophical question. I can think of few things worse than bringing a child into this world without being prepared to care for the child and we have not made that a crime. Maybe we should?
There is one law, that is the law of nature, and if we make good choices the consequences will be good, but if we make bad choices the consequences will be bad. Our laws are supposed to comply with the laws of nature, and the laws that do comply with the laws of nature get good results and the laws that don't comply with the laws of nature get bad results. Our reaction to pot has lead to a lot of bad, and I would hate for anyone in my family to go to prison because of pot. Our laws regarding pot, seem to be what we should stand against.
I know alcohol is extremely destructive and causes much suffering, so does meth, but I am not sure marijuana is that bad. We obey the laws when feel empowered to make them and change them. However, at this time we feel disenfranchised and do not respect our laws as we once may have. For sure our laws did not attempt to control our lives as much as they do now. And I am very suspicious about the reasons for making pot illegal.
Well educated people enjoying the benefits of society have a better chance of making good decisions than ignorant people with nothing to loose. Perhaps it would be better to spend money on education and human welfare than on prisons?
Why does anyone want to use pot? What is the harm? Is there a good alternative?
I am in favor of what you said, however, I would add taxing all substances including sugar to cover the harm done by the substances. Use the taxes to cover medical cost and pay for support groups and rehabilitation, and when families are harmed, to help them recover as well.
Prisons are expensive and waste away a person's life and this also hurts everyone who cares about the person in prison, including the children. That is just barbaric. It is not justice that will make life better.
Gambling should also be taxed to for treating those who become addicted and helping families that are hurt.
Tax wood products to replant trees and so on. Making money needs to come with responsibility and taxing a product or service to resolve a problem caused by using a product or service is responsible.
Prison has a bunch of stoners meshing with hardened criminal... it's pretty sad.
As much as I don't like taxes, THIS! It's representative too, so it has a good moral basis. Unlike how Britain used to tax us and use the money willy nilly.
I don't think labor should be taxed (Income tax). Am I crazy? I think the surplus created by capitalism should go to the poor first (pay your nation first) then traded. So, we wouldn't need to tax laborers and the boss man only loses out on materials he may have or not have sold anyway. Instead of giving tax money to the poor we actually give them the materials that they need so they don't spend it on drugs or whatever (There are responsible ones). Most other taxes like gas tax are still in effect (I forgot the name for these taxes). So labor keeps his money and pays taxes on products and services he chooses. While the poor get apples and other extra stuff. The capitalist (I'm not a marxist!) has the high esteem of being a powerful force in the economy instead of resented. Capitalism still lifts all boats and has equal opportunity, but we could essentially get rid of the "lower class". There would still be terminally ill people and charity would still work for them.
I was in Erbert and Gerberts today and they sold day old bread for $.99. They aren't going to make a killing on day old bread....
I say No. It is not wrong. I have no philosophical defense at all. It brings health benefits to an INSANE system which would rather addict people onto expensive and deadly substances to profit a bloated and morally corrupt Industry (Big Pharma).
To me, it's like asking if it's wrong to free a slave. No, it's not wrong. Even if it's illegal, it's not wrong to free a slave.
Where pot is legal, people who have been enslaved to Big Pharma are getting freed.....to the tune of 1.6 million less doses A DAY!!! Yes, a day.......
Bring on the pot...............free someone today.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/04/02/598787768/opioid-use-lower-in-states-that-eased-marijuana-laws
This is definitely something I agree with you on. There should be far more common sense in the criminal justice system. The objective should be to make everyone's lives better, and that's not done by taking a draconian, "technically correct" approach to criminal justice.
The problem with relying on “common sense”, in addition to being so rare “common” seems a comical word to use, is that it also opens the door to bias and emotion based judgements. Im not sure its possible to reliably have one without the other. The strength/usefulness of “technically correct” is its reference to an objective standard, at the price mention by Athena.
I agree with both of you, I lament there isnt...well better judgement being applied by judges. Seems like we could set the bar a bit higher than merely referencing a list of rules. Alas, what can ya do? Its the tragedy of the commons. If we are going to be inclusive to as much of humanity as reasonably possible in our laws and/ethics, we have to compensate for the dumbest, most criminal and most unethical among us AND the (I would say) least capable judges/arbiters. This is why we have the “technically correct” standards and I think thats what we are stuck with unless a division of classes or catagories or measuement is introduced, which of course has its own problems.
I don't believe that it's really possible to avoid that, though.
Well, true. Poorly put on my part. The door is always open of course. I should have said the door opens wider. I think that its possible for bias and emotion to effect judgement to varying degrees, and meant my points based on that rather than the binary implication of my shitty metaphor.
The bottom line for me is moral is a matter of cause and effect, and we should be held responsible for the effect of our words and deeds. That means being responsible for pursuing knowledge so our judgment is the best it can be. Only recently have we become so dependent on formal education provided by colleges, and this dependency on colleges has distorted our understanding our what is important about a democracy and being human.
About making it illegal to have children if one can not support them, that is a different subject and I have a lot to say about that but not in this thread. :grin: Just compared to doing pot, what is worse. Doing the pot or not supporting a child and the parent who needs to care for the child?
Can we start a movement and do something about our barbaric criminal justice system?!
in a Micheal Moore show, "Where to Invade Next" is a prison with 4 unarmed guards whose purpose is to make people's lives better so they can return to society truly corrected.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KeAZho8TKo
We treat stray animals better than humans in prison and we even imprison people with mental disorders and then abuse them terribly. Where to Invade Next also has a video from one of our prisons and this is a terrible national shame. No way are people who do things the way do them in the US, international leaders that lift the human potential. When it comes to being good human beings, the US might not have much to defend? Smoking pot is not as bad as our prison system. There is no moral superiority in some of our social agreements.
This is about to get really real:
2016 was a really intense year for me. Towards the end of 2015 I took it upon myself to give the trust enough in myself to start smoking pot and drinking again after 5 years of sobriety. (During that 5 years I was around parties allllll the time; I even organized them and got all of the people together to make them as big and beautiful as I could.) Everyone knew I was sober, but it didn't effect my relationships with my friends because they all knew that I try my hardest to be a loving and genuine person to everyone I meet.
But I started back...
The weed and the booze aren't what threw me for a loop, though. I am the type of person who can take one puff or drink one beer and then walk away and continue about my life like they are no big deal.
No... it wasn't addiction.
It was Hallucinogens.
I took some acid.
It gave me feelings like I had never before experienced. Physically, mentally, and emotionally something changed inside me and I became extremely curious as to what it was about these chemicals that opened up a whole new perspective of life in my mind.
So I indulged. Regularly.
Too regularly. My curiosity led to a habit of accepting almost any drug that crossed my path. (I even took meth once - NEVER again will I do that; it was absolutely horrendous.)
I never went out of my way to find these chemicals, but I did intentionally put myself in positions and situations where I knew that they would surface for my indulgence.
After a while... I felt enlightened from them. "Woke" as the kids say now a days...
But my "wokeness" went too far. It gave me a sense of superiority over others in a way. In my mind I could do no wrong because everything I chose to do was considered yet another part in my path towards... Well towards making the world a better place.
I became a saint in my own eyes.
It became my destiny to travel the world spreading love and peace to anyone who was willing to have it. At one point I was even considering spending my very last $1500 on a plane ticket to Israel. I was going to go and see whoever was in charge and I was going to end the Jerusalem conflict with my love. (Trust me I know it's silly lol)
Instead I left my family in Denver and I went off to Oregon with nothing. I offended the people I took shelter under with my self righteous delusions of grandeur. (much like I offended many with the same ideals before I even left home; many people have forgiven me, some haven't, and some I will likely ask forgivness of until I die because I have a hard time forgiving myself.)
Anyway - they kicked me out and I became homeless in Eugene Oregon with a heart full of love and a mind full of confusion. It was here that I found a feeling of desire and love for art. Homelessness is very boring at times and art kept me thrilled to be alive. Soon after, I realized that my greatest creation was at home without my guidance and without my affection, so I gave up my desire to change the world and traded it for a bus ticket home to be a presence for the greatest achievement that I will ever leave on Earth - my son.
This experience, and these chemicals changed my life. They took away the pressure of being the perfect human and they gave me the understanding that purpose is within - not without.
If you are experiencing a "third eye opening experience" from hallucinogens I want to say this: it is not your job to heal the world. Don't put that pressure on yourself. It is your job to find the peace in your own heart enough to accept your life as it happens. It's okay to feel "woke" but trust me - you do not want to be "the wokest" because there is a very fine line on the matter of morality and we just aren't capable of having all of the answers all of the time - no matter how genuine we feel in our hearts.
Fortunately I have had the year of 2017 to recover from this life changing experience. I no longer feel the curiosity that was brought about by the chemicals that I no longer take, and I don't feel the desire to dig deeper into this altered state of mind. I feel like I learned what I needed to learn, and thank God I don't need to learn it again.
I love you. I love life. I love my family and my son. We will put our minds to bringing prosperity to our home and we will win.
Excellent post . . . we need a "thumbs up" button for posts like that.
I accept the "thumbs up" from Terrapin Station and pass the "thumbs up" on to Lif3r. It takes courage to expose ourselves and you obviously did so to pass what you learned on to us. That is a very generous act.
I think we have some agreement that hurting others is not okay. I think the world would be a better place if we shared family values and drew the line at not doing things that hurt our families. What we are doing stops being moral when it hurts others.
Failure to be a good parent harms the child and this harm is passed on for generations.
Underlined is the very definition of sophistry. Perhaps you should try the Sophistry Forums instead!
So you actually do believe that there are things that are factually correct when it comes to (foundational) moral stances, aesthetic stances, etc. Even you had denied that, but it seemed pretty clear that you believe it.
I personally do not think drug usage is not so much of a moral issue, rather it is an ethical issue in society to which unfortunately drug usage in general in the states have been criminalized to the point where communities have been disproportionately have become affected. I don't believe what you're doing is immoral, however rightness and wrongness are subjective, contingent upon each of our individual understanding of rightness and wrongness.
True, but what are risks to those that indulge in its recreational usage? There are plenty of functional users.
Oops, I misread your question the first time around. I read it as asking what are [i]the[/I] risks...
Nevermind. I get your point now. As in, the risks aren't the be-all and end-all for some, and that is true of many people, in relation to a whole variety of recreational activities, not just drug taking. Some can still function, or rather function enough to get by.
None of those "in extremis" examples are factual, true, correct. They're simply opinions that one can have.
"That's sophistry" isn't an adequate response to the objection.
Not really. It seems like anything can be called sophistry nowadays.
It's a type of jellyfish.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Quoting Janus
Quoting Terrapin Station
You're both kind of right. But Terrapin wins in my assessment of this exchange. It does [i]seem[/I] obvious, and calling it bullshit will likely [i]seem[/I] agreeable on the surface to many people.
But can you provide reasonable support for such claims without the added qualifications? If calling something obvious or bullshit or sophistry is adequate here, then why not in other contexts in philosophy? Where is one to draw the line? Is it just whatever Janus says goes, or is it another appeal to the masses, or what?
You are in no position to talk to me about wisdom when you deliberately miss the point like that and take a cheap shot instead. Go on then, you can scuttle away now that you've predictably exploited my use of that term and spewed out some patronising drivel, if that's all you care about. (Hmm... evasion, exploitation of language, patronising drivel... now what does that remind me of...?)
I meant it in the sense that, in my assessment, he presented a more reasonable or compelling case. And by that criteria, I consider him to have "won". And there's nothing wrong with that. Not that I have to justify myself to one such as you.
Yourself?
Prévisible.
Glad you corrected yourself lol
:monkey:
Lets look at illegal and drugs separately for the moment.
Is it immoral to do anything illegal?
Surely we can imagine situations in which most would feel that obeying a law would be immoral. Suppose for example you are in Nazi Germany and it is against the law to lie to the officer at your door about Jews you are hiding.
It seems to me that the question of whether an action is immoral is independent the question of whether it is legal. One is not a function of the other. Not all immoral actions are necessarily illegal and not all illegal actions are necessarily immoral.
Consider the act of questioning the morality of a law. Is it a good law? If what is illegal is automatically what is immoral and what is legal is automatically morally permissible, then it would impossible to morally interrogate the law.
Consider, for one thing, that different societies have different laws, and sometimes these laws are in conflict.
We also run into a question analogous to that asked in the Euthyphro dialogue: Is it good because the gods love it or do the gods love it because it is good? In our case, we would substitute "laws" for "gods".
Is it wrong because it is illegal or is it illegal because it is wrong?
Let's take the former, wrong because illegal. That would suggest that something isn't wrong until it is made illegal. So creating laws creates immorality. It was okay to murder until they outlawed the practice. Now it is suddenly wrong.
Now let's take latter, illegal because wrong. This seems more reasonable. But of course it means that the question of whether something is wrong precedes the question of whether it is legal. We ask first if it is wrong. If it is, we make it illegal. But the question of its wrongness is prior to the question of its legality. Legality is then not what determines morality. But can we be sure that no mistakes are ever made here? And do the laws exhaust all matters of morality?
Does wrongness entail illegality?
Does illegality entail wrongness?
No and no.
It seems clear that the question of whether something is immoral or not should be asked independently of whether it is legal.
Are all drugs the same? Does it even make sense to ask if it is moral to do drugs in general? Don't different drugs have very different effects? Wouldn't it make the most sense to say that whether something has certain effects is what makes it immoral rather than whether it is a drug?
Suppose the question is one of harm. Alcohol is a legal drug. Cocaine is an illegal drug. Datura is legal. Henbane is legal. Kratom is legal. Bath salts are legal. Does the legality here make any difference to the question of whether doing any of these drugs is harmful? There is plenty of evidence of alcohol's harmfulness, despite its legality.
Maybe it is immoral to do drugs if they are harmful rather than if they are illegal. Perhaps? So maybe the question of legality is irrelevant to morality.
Suppose that doing certain drugs is harmful because if you get caught, you go to jail and cease to be a functioning member of society and cease to be a parent to your children. If harmfulness is what determines immorality, then maybe illegality can be the cause of the immorality.
There are harmful drugs that are legal. Could there be harmless drugs that are nevertheless illegal? Would it be immoral to do those ones? Suppose there are beneficial drugs that are illegal. How about those? Is such a situation unimaginable? Do you scoff at the possibility that a drug is beneficial and nevertheless illegal? Why? Because governments never do anything bad, never make bad laws?
What about so-called "performance enhancing" drugs? Consider "performance enhancing" all by itself, without considering the harms you think go with certain drugs often classified in this way. It is thought wrong by some to use performance enhancing drugs because they enhance performance, not because they are harmful, precisely because they are thought to be a form of cheating, because everything is a competition and it is unfair to have an advantage. But I thought it was harmfulness that makes drugs bad! Now it is benefit too?
If it is bad to take something that degrades performance, like heroin, one might be tempted to think that if a drug is shown to have a net performance enhancing effect, everyone should be taking it. If it should be against the law to degrade your performance, perhaps it should be the law that we are all required to take anything that enhances us, as we seem to be saying that the law should prohibit us from performing worse. To not use such drugs is to perform worse. How about that? Fun, no?
Suppose the principle of legislation is this:
If it makes us worse, make it illegal.
It should then be illegal to oversleep, to undersleep, to not exercise, to exercise too much, to overeat, to undereat, and so on. You get the idea.
Suppose we simultaneously have this principle:
If it gives users an advantage over non-users, make it illegal.
Anyone see any trouble here?
And if something degrades performance or possibly does grievous harm, why should the question of whether it is a drug or not matter to whether or not it should be illegal or immoral?
Besides, does "Socrates said we should do X" entail that we should do X? Socrates says it is immoral, therefore it is immoral. Fallacious, obviously. Appeal to authority.
Now, in the Trump era, when everyone on the right "knows" that the everything in the non-Fox mainstream media is "fake news", especially CNN, some might question this article, since it comes from CNN. Let's put the question of whether it is factual aside. Make it hypothetical that it is accurate. Suppose that the primary reason for criminalizing some drugs was to jail and thus politically silence certain groups, to basically deactivate and persecute and even prevent the reproduction of certain political groups. What then? Is it immoral to do those drugs because it was made illegal by these people? Is it immoral to be a member of these groups? Is it immoral to have those political beliefs?
Suppose all right-wingers use drug A and all left-wingers use drug B. Now suppose left-wingers gain the power to outlaw drug A and thus to put right-wingers in jail. Is it immoral to do drug A and not drug B? Now right-wingers are all criminals and presumably also bad people, perhaps even "evil".
Recently, Jeff Sessions said, "Good people don't smoke marijuana." Well, conveniently, marijuana is more associated with the political left than the right and Sessions is a right-winger. What if we said that "good people don't drink scotch"? He probably drinks something. Most people he considers good probably drink at least occasionally. After all, Winston Churchill is often reputed to have been an alcoholic. And he didn't he say that good people don't smoke marijuana when it is illegal. It is now legal in some places.
Are people bad if they smoke marijuana in Texas but not in Colorado? If so, we need to change the laws to make it legal everywhere, as laws prohibiting the drug are therefore making people bad!
How do you do emojis like that?
Got it...
Wow all that education and still unwise.... Thank you my good friend...btw please if you have more questions in my thread feel free to ask...Hard questions please
Touché. :grin:
No. I use gabapentin and cannabis to mitigate the unpleasant effects of MS. The MS is harmful; the drugs help to moderate that harm. Isn't everything we partake of, a drug, in some sense? Maybe even water?
I don't think blanket statements help. :chin:
Quoting Athena
I can't relate these two snippets, even though one follows directly after the other. Are you for or against ... or some other position?
I think addiction is the problem. :chin:
Drugs are just one thing we can become addicted to.
Both are true. Keep in mind water is essential to life and it can kill.
Addiction to anything, including sugar, is harmful. An addiction turns us into slaves to the substance or behavior. Even exercising is addicting. In rats and humans the habit of exercising becomes physical in that the our bodies will become uncomfortable if we stop exercising when we are in the habit of exercising, same as we feel hungry when we need food. Our addictions are physical cravings, and they control our thinking. We can use our mental powers to stop addictions but it is not easy to break some addictions and avoid returning to the substance or activity that is addictive.
:100:
Perhaps it is immoral not to do illegal drugs.
:lol:
Yes, I would take it further than that. Not only is it immoral not to do illegal drugs, the law should be changed such that it is illegal not to do so.
Refusing to pop a pill should carry a heavy prison sentence.
So how is that statement not sophistry?
How is saying that it is not a fact sophistry?
So that my post is on topic I will bring the sophistry back in line with the thread:
Of course drugs are NOT immoral, anyone with a brain can figure that out :grimace:
Definitely! If I walk up to you on the street with a bump of cocaine, and you refuse to take it: automatic prison sentence.
I like your irony, illegal not to do illegal drugs. Lol
If there are no analogous criteria for moral judgments, no criteria beyond personal preference then whether or not taking illegal drugs is moral will be merely a matter of opinion.
Definition of art: the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.
That definition gives no way of ranking art. In fact, it makes no mention that it would even be possible to rank them (are beauty and emotional power measurable?). One could be invented, but that is above and beyond "art". We argued this one for 15 pages (art and the elitism of opinion) and no one on your side had a much better answer than "of course Hamlet is better than Transformers" - pure sophistry (i am not even saying Hamlet is worse, but surely if obviously true, there should be some evidence/reasoning).
Now if we define morality: principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.
While it still seems very subjective to me, words like right, wrong, good, bad, while ambiguous, do imply a ranking could be created.
That'd get my vote! We need a world leader who speaks up for the ironic drug taking community.
Ok then it's settled, I'll be the pretty face, and you be the brain behind the scenes
I haven't read that discussion, but it seems it went as I would've predicted.
Transformers came long afterwards so it is likely to be a highly mutated derivation
(Add. But does originality equate to better, I would say so)
To transform or not to transform? That is the question.
:lol:
And: transforming is half the battle.
Really, zhou? And here I thought we'd been getting along.... :chin:
I was using the term 'the arts' to refer to any and all of the arts, including music, poetry, literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, etc. beauty and emotional power are not "measurable" because they are not quantities. But they are experienceable, and some people are better equipped to experience and respond to them than others, just as some works embody them more powerfully, more subtly, more intelligently, more authentically and so on, than others.
To say this is not sophistry, but to express something I know from experience. However there is no deductive argument that can demonstrate it, just as there is no inductive argument that will convince anyone who has not had experiences of the appropriate kind. There will always be philistines who think that there are no differences in quality between artworks, that it is all merely a matter of personal taste, and that there is no such thing as bad taste or superficial understanding when it comes to art (or philosophy, for that matter!).
As to your last sentence, I would say that the equivalent aesthetic expressions to "right' would be 'it works'; to 'wrong' would be 'it doesn't work'; to 'good' would be 'beautiful', 'evocative', 'profound' or 'rich'; to 'bad' would be 'ugly', 'mundane', 'pedestrian', 'superficial', or 'vacuous'. Of course there are many other terms I could have mentioned.
haha, yeah I had a few supporters so I can go on thinking I am not crazy for a bit longer :smile:
Me too. I can't disagree and get along? I have even found myself agreeing with almost everything you say in every OTHER thread but that one. And I think on that thread there may have even a few points where some middle ground was found, but I felt like no specific arguments were made as to why Hamlet is better (for example, one common argument is that it is better because it is definitive and transformers is derivative - I am simplifying - but as soon as I begin to ask why and how we are describing things this way, there is no attempted defense - is everything that is old definitive and new derivative?)
I will take more time to respond to your post more respectfully (no time now), but this statement was the exact thrust of that thread. So some people are better at "experiencing" art? Doesn't that seem a bit haughty? If not, what exactly does that mean?
Quoting Janus
a nice play on words :smile:
I suppose I could be wrong. Maybe I'll check out the "arguments" for why Hamlet is supposedly better than Transformers in an objective sense.
Janus is bifrontal, that is why he can disagree while remaining agreeable.
Disagree, of course! But saying we had no arguments is a bit much! :brow:
Quoting ZhouBoTong
:blush: :kiss:
Alright, alright. [I]Bad[/I] arguments. (Probably. I don't know, I haven't read them. But I'm usually right. Right?).
Apparently, that's just your interpretation and can neither be right nor wrong :smirk: :razz:
Ah-hem. More importantly, who gave your permission to use my smirk? And don't you even [i]think[/I] of responding with a smirk, or I'll...
I'll...
Go grab another beer!
Cheers! :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk:
Well, being wrong is sort of my M.O. But I will not admit it easily. Time for me to go read 15 pages of that thread all over again :smile: .
I did not say there were no arguments made as to why some art is better than other; but were there specific arguments as to why a specific work of Shakespeare was specifically better than one of the Transformers movies?
Most, if not all, of those who can understand the content of Shakespeare can also understand the content of Transformers movies. In contrast, a significant portion of those who get Transformers movies (such as preadolescents, as one example) do not get Shakespeare. Premise: sapience has an importance to us. Conclusion: Shakespeare is a better form of artwork than Transformers … ‘cuz it’s more sapience-oriented.
Consider this analogy: chimps and elephants can paint. Humans can understand the paintings of chimps and elephants; but chimps and elephants cannot understand the paintings of humans. Therefore, human paintings are of greater aesthetic value than chimp and elephant paintings; again, because human paintings are more sapience-centric.
Or is me saying that “an elephant’s painting is of lesser aesthetic value than one of Leonardo’s” simply me being an elitist? I can deal with that, I think. And no, I'm not bashing on the Transformers movies.
If you go by that measure, then good for you.
Fifteen pages of wasted discussion trying to overcome the impossible.
So you're saying that the term "sapience" has no factual, hence impartial, hence objective referent?
I get that we're subjective about what is factually ontic. This to me, however, does not negate the presence of facts ... such as that of sapient beings (e.g., humans at large) being distinct from non-sapient, but yet sentient, beings (e.g. ameba; yes amebas can sense their environments). If I need to clarity: this by incremental gradations, as per biological evolution. (different topic, though)
No, I'm saying what I said. Do you need me to repeat it?
Quoting javra
I've clearly made no indication that I'm disputing that, so I don't know where you'd get that idea from. I'm disputing the reasoning. The argument won't ever work, so you're just wasting your time. You'll never get your, "Therefore, it's better", in any significant way. The appropriate response will just be, "If you go by that measure, then good for you".
Then, in the context of this:
Quoting javra
how does this rationally fit in?:
Quoting S
I don't think that you're capable. I don't think that Janus is capable. I don't think that NKBJ is capable. I don't think that Merkwhatevershisname is capable. I don't think that [I]anyone[/I] is capable. I think that that's naive.
Wow. OK. How then is the quality of sapience in any way rational to uphold? Or is sapience an irrational concept?
----
Remember, you've already said that it hods a factual referent. Best I can interpret your former reply, at least.
It has nothing to do with sapience, it has to do with aesthetic value.
Are you, or are you not, saying that if something is more sapience-oriented, then it is of better value, or greater aesthetic value?
That's all I need to know, because that won't ever work for the reasons I've explained.
At any rate, the question still stands: Is "sapience" an irrational concept on grounds that is it not measurable?
The question remains beside the point.
Yes. To recap:
P: We as sapient beings value sapience
C: Artwork that is of greater sapience is therefore of greater aesthetic value to us
an argument, that's all
Quoting S
Ah, but the reasons you've explained are pivoted around the rationality of using sapience as a measure. Hence:
Quoting S
... is completely fallacious.
Is "sapience" a rational concept despite not being measurable via a metric stick or some such?
An argument that fails for reasons I've explained. Do you need me to go back over the reasons?
Quoting javra
Your question was poorly worded. There is no rationality for using sapience as a measure in any way that will make your argument work, and a test for that is whether or not the response of, "If that's your measure, then good for you", is appropriate. And it is in your case, as it is in other failed attempts.
And this is what @ZhouBoTong was talking about, which is why it's probably a waste of my time to read fifteen pages of that discussion.
I would say that that's naive, unless you just mean to express an opinion.
Quoting Janus
Somewhere we are struggling with language. If they cannot be measured, how can they be "more"? Prove it? and I don't mean empirically, I mean how would you even begin?
Quoting Janus
Indeed. But my experience tells me that Shakespeare was not that clever (the greeks made much more clever use of prophecy - the prophecies in macbeth are pointless - well I only remember 2 out of 3) and that I only like Beethoven's 9th plus a few seconds of the 5th (that scene in the Simpson's where the whole town gets up to leave the symphony after 5 seconds of Da Da da Daaaa nails it). Mozart will make an elevator ride more pleasant but am I going to be emotionally moved? rarely. Not that others won't be, but that is the point.
Haha, that's brilliant. I didn't know of that scene.
As long as one can handle one’s responsibilities, then I feel like illegal drug use is not a matter of morality, but there are other considerations such as damaging the health of the body and giving money to evil drug cartels. That said, wouldn’t a better healthcare system and legalizing drugs help assuage these issues?
It's about Pokémon now. I like Jigglypuff. That Pokémon was definitely on drugs. I think a lot of them were.
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
Yes.
Do we love some things more than others? Of course! How will you measure the difference? If you reduce life to what is measurable, what will be left?
Asking for measure in ethics or aesthetics, or asking for deductive or unequivocal inductive arguments in ethics or aesthetics is a category error.
So what if you show there are no such unequivocal arguments to support ethical or aesthetic judgements? All you have shown is that such judgements are not analytic or empirical judgements, but that is trivially obvious to anyone who has given it any thought.
It doesn't follow that artworks and ethical judgements do not embody more or less understanding of the human condition, or that such understanding is not what is near universally valued above all else by those who value human intelligence and the compassion and sensitivity that come with it over mere entertainment or self-serving pleasure seeking.
People come to see these ethical and aesthetic truths because they develop and transform their ability to see them, not because they could be convinced by some deductive argument or undeniable empirical observation or theory.
This is off-topic but I think it is relevant. If people take drugs whether legal or illegal just for kicks then it is unethical in the sense that they are doing both themselves and their community a disservice. If on the other hand taking drugs expands their consciousness and helps to attain greater connection with self and other and greater compassion and understanding of self and other then it is ethical. It's easy enough to see that even if it cannot be measured, deductively proven or directly and definitively empirically demonstrated.
Exploitation or wanton destruction of self or other is both aesthetically ugly and morally wrong because it is anti-life; it clearly shows a psychological problem and/ or a lack of intelligence; you can't get much simpler than that.
Well, for me personally, the legal drugs that my psychiatrist prescribes make me so lethargic, drained, drowsy, and lazy, that I cannot handle much responsibility. So, drugs can be bad whether legal or illegal.
my fault (I think I started it anyway) :grimace: I will start responding to the off-topic stuff in the other thread.
My wife says she won’t stay with me if I don’t take my medications. I love her.
I'm just expressing opinion, its not necessarily true, it's just one perspective amongst a vast web of perspectives, hopefully with the effect of inciting more useless debate.
If that isn’t clear enough to lock and bolt the facile idea of “illegal” being “immoral” then I don’t know what would do it.
It may well have that effect if you don't make it clear that you're just expressing an opinion, given the context, because some people on this forum seem to think that those sort of statements indicate something more than just an opinion. In your opinion, originality equates to better, and I might share that opinion, or I might have a different opinion, but there's nothing more to it than an exchange of opinions.
You're offering logic and common sense? What are you thinking? :wink:
Fair question. And the topic specifically addresses illegal drugs, but are you accounting for legal drugs? Alcohol is the obvious example. If your question also applies to substances whose effects are similar (or worse, in the case of alcohol), then fair enough. :up:
The obvious question in response to that would be: to what extent? Complete control in every situation where a recreational drug has been taken is both physically and practically impossible. To the extent that it accords with my sense of right and wrong, and personal responsibility, and my liberalism? I can try my best, and that's all you can justifiably expect of me. You might have a different sense of right and wrong, and personal responsibility, and you might be more of a conservative, but you're not right by default.
I don't excuse my belligerence, I accept proportional responsibility, then I make light of it and move on, because otherwise it would eat me up inside and I would be at great risk of doing something even more self-destructive.
Whether the decision to take drugs itself was immoral is complicated. Is it reckless to go to the pub and drink enough to get drunk? Is that immoral? Should that be illegal?
It means right by default, and you're not right by default because that's just not how this works, unless perhaps you're a god.
Quoting tim wood
Your reply is far too lengthy. You know I have little toleration for that, except in exceptional cases, and I don't count your reply as one of those cases. The above point seems to be what it comes down to. I find it funny that you mentioned being objective earlier in the same reply, yet you end up basing your judgement on how it "appears" to you. That doesn't sound very objective to me.
And your point that what cannot be controlled may not be, probably cannot be, moral, just doesn't work, because it is far too vague, and still doesn't resolve the very same objection I made earlier: that control is a matter of degree, and you need to go into further detail to say anything meaningful on the matter. So, after all of that text, we're still back at square one. If I have a few pints, I will lose some control. So, should I never drink, or what? What about having a few pulls of a spliff?
You don't like strong criticism, do you? You take it personally, and respond with name-calling and the like.
My original objection to your point about control was that it is met with the question of, "To what extent?". Whether you find my analysis offensive or otherwise, your closing point doesn't tell me anything meaningful, as in any practical guidance on the topic. Does it mean we should all stay completely sober, all of the time? What exactly does it mean? I guess we'll never really know if you won't clarify. And by clarify, I don't mean ramble on without actually addressing my objection. These are serious, unanswered questions: If I have a few pints, I will lose some control. So, should I never drink, or what? What about having a few pulls of a spliff? You need to actually break down and properly go in to detail about control.
Then you should be more succinct and more on point. But instead you ramble and lose focus. I'm not going to address excessively lengthy posts in the same manner that I address a succinct post, and you should know that by now. It takes too much time and effort to analyse and respond to everything in a lengthy post. So if you don't want me to be "non-responsive", then stick to the key points, don't write an essay.
Then I'll skip to that bit and answer them. That's not a problem. What's a problem for me is when you write several sentences for what I can write in a single sentence, with the result being that your post is several times as long.
Really? That's your question? Of course I think that there's such a thing.
I had started to read through your post, but it's a chore. I just wanted a short, punchy answer. A focused and succinct reply. You said something about cost-benefit analysis, and cost to myself and others. That's the sort of key thing that is at risk of being missed or neglected if your post is too lengthy. Can't you just get straight to the point, and reserve lengthy elaboration as an 'upon request' sort of thing? I will let you know if I need a really detailed example about bike helmets.
I'm not going to play out a Socratic dialogue with you, and the topic is whether it is immoral to do illegal drugs.
I get the impression that you really dislike philosophy.
So you deny full responsibility to assuage your guilt so that you can feel better about yourself so that you can be a better person. Nice mental gymnastics. Does this method of self-affirmation work only for drug induced violent states or does it also work for intentional acts of violence? Can I shoot someone in the face and then deny full responsibility in order to unburden my conscience so that I can go out and be more productive?
Fascinating.
I deny full responsibility because I'm not fully responsible.
The people of this forum never cease to amaze me. In a discussion on meta-ethics, people treat the topic as though it is a discussion on normative ethics, and in a discussion on normative ethics, people treat the topic as though it is a discussion on meta-ethics.
My meta-ethics is irrelevant. What's relevant is my judgement on whether or not taking illegal drugs is immoral.
You'd think people would educate themselves on a branch of philosophy before entering discussions within that branch of philosophy.
Alright, so let's say you got drunk and belligerent and punched a guy named Bob in the face. There are 100 percentage points of responsibility you can dole out. How many of those 100 points do you get? If not 100, who gets the rest?
Perhaps your punishment should be lessened due to the extent of your intent, but I can't see reducing your responsibility.
If your behavior was motivated by a high fever, it'd likely reduce or eliminate your responsibility, but I can't see voluntary intoxication as a viable defense.
It's not something that can be quantified, at least not precisely, and that's not something I need to do to support my point. And surely you recognise that your second question is a loaded question, so I'm definitely not answering that one. My point is just that I'm not fully responsible as a sober person would be, because I wasn't fully in control as a sober person would be. And even that doesn't take into account that sober people can still be categorised into more and less serious crimes based on whether the crime was premeditated or a crime of passion. Come on, you know the law better than I do. I don't base my morality on it to a T, but there's a rough template there for my reasoning on this. Basically, less control, less responsible. We've been over this already. What's the use of going over it again?
Quoting Hanover
And we've already agreed to disagree over this.
Quoting Hanover
For me, it's irrelevant whether or not it would stand up in a court of law, but obviously I consider it to be a justification for only partial responsibility.
That's not an argument, that's just a condescending assertion, and an implicit attack on my character. I can't say I'm surprised to see this sort of response from you. I've come to expect it.
Quoting tim wood
No, I was talking about responsibility in the context of ethics. I wasn't talking about legal [i]anything[/I] there. That's a poor interpretation of what I was saying.
For 6 years I've been in CORE Group, Co-Occurring Recovery Education. The "co" is addiction and mental illness, dual diagnosis.
Only a part of groups for 6 years, at the same clinic for 11. So, for 6 years I noticed a disconnect between how the court saw me, and how the clinic treated me. I asked my psychiatrist, "How come the court holds me 100% responsible for my willed acts, but the clinic tells me like the climatic scene of Good Will Hunting, it's not your fault, it's not your fault, it's not your fault." He said, "It's a huge controversy."
It's ever changing. Here in Riverside CA the court is bowing to the sacred robes of the mental clinic who don't have the first bit of understanding about the mind.
You want a continuation of the meta-ethical discussion from elsewhere on the forum, and I do not. Especially not here, where it's clearly inappropriate. And especially not by you role playing as Socrates, in an excruciating step-by-step run through of one of Plato's dialogues. I've given you more than enough on that topic already. There's over sixty pages of discussion. I suggest you go and review my many posts in that discussion, and that will probably answer most, if not all, of your questions.
Some questions don't dignify a response.
Quoting tim wood
Yes, there's nothing constructive in criticism which suggests the way to self-improvement through educating yourself about an important distinction in philosophy, and in learning the importance of staying on topic.
As we look around, usage of such substances is not out of two contexts, prescribed for a purpose and not prescribed which are for recreational purposes.
To me whatever drugs that we use are all for only one purpose and that is "not to be ourselves or normal". Now being normal is easy to explain and you can all picture it. But those who use it are in a sense not normal, even if they use it for recreational purposes. I would understand the pain of a sick person who is suffering to help them to ease the pain and that pain which is not normal can be cured for a while with such drugs...but those who are not sick and then they use it, to me they are much sicker than the ones that they are in hospitals or get them through a prescription for a legit reason.....
The ones who use it for recreational purposes, have lost the sense of humanity and something precious and that thy think that with such substances they will be able to get them back.....In reality all those who use alcohol even if its one drink have the same consequences as any other drugs. They are all chemicals and we use chemicals to ease the pain which is not there at all.... We as human beings have no pain unless we are injured or something really bad is happening inside us. Whatever else that we are in pain from is our own past and future which is not there at all in the first place. If we could have managed to let those two go then we wouldn't be talking about drugs or to use it not use it at all....
The Simpsons are full of great little scenes like that. I can't even tell you what episode that was from because the whole scene was only about 10-20 seconds.
Can you guarantee to control your emotions and their effect on you and others? One might say that people don't choose to be emotional where as they choose to do drugs. However, anyone that has ever practiced controlling their own emotions would say that we do in fact choose our emotions (to a limited extent), and everyone who has a laissez faire attitude about emotions is just contributing to the problem.
I can guarantee that any drug use I partake in will be FAR less harmful than many actions that result from unrestrained emotion.
Just like emotions, one should not assume that all drugs affect all people the same. Even hard psychedelic drugs - some people will be aware they are on drugs, no matter how intense the effect - if one is aware they are on drugs, they will limit their actions. If I just stay in my house the whole time, what is the worst that can happen?
excuse me? how so?
And what about my emotions analogy?
I can re-word:
Question: Are you a member of a community? Assuming the answer is yes, do your emotions do your community any harm? Answer: of course they do. Question: the people you hurt, is it all right for you to hurt them? Is it all right with them? Did you get their permission?
Seems harsh, but the situation is harsh. The fact, for fact it is, that some of the harm is not so visible and sometimes seems unimportant as is often used as an excuse, but is in fact no excuse whatsoever, and is, IN FACT, a hallmark of the manipulative behavior of those who lack emotional control. "But it's my life, my choice! Leave me alone its none of your business," cries the emotional addict! If only. But it is everybody's business will they or nil they. As such, mindfulness training makes a lot of sense. But I have to wonder if the emotions in question are just too powerful.
The community says, "Drugs are bad, mmmkay", and the individual is just supposed to respond, "Oh, alright then".
Maybe, but I'm having fun.
You say this as an assertion, without any form of justification. Is there any justification, evidence, or anything like that?
I thought I actually provided evidence of their similarities. Oh well.
Quoting tim wood
both can lead to potential harms if they are used irresponsibly
That was easy. Next question?
Does this even begin to address the points people have been making in this thread? I could similarly pull statistics to show that processed sugar has and does kill far more Americans than opioids. But I would NEVER pull those statistics as evidence that ALL sugar should be banned at all times.
You seem to be arguing that if we can identify anything as POTENTIALLY harmful, it should be eliminated. And yet you ignore that most human activity has some harmful component if you look close enough.
I guess I don't see your point.
When does a drug have some utility? When it's bestowed by some authority behind it and has some social good to promote?
Here in the US, we have Schedule I, II, III, and IV drugs. Schedule I drugs have no conferred utility according to authorities. Yet, according to people behind research institutes like MAPS, there's some utility to be had behind the use of certain Schedule I drugs, like LSD or psilocybin.
Anyway, I think, some drugs, like LSD or psilocybin have some utility, where other's don't, even if they are legal.
For example, methamphetamine is a Schedule II drug, that can be prescribed by psychiatrists, as Desoxyn. Does that mean that it should be a Schedule II drug? Seemingly so.
To self-negate (or propose a third alternative), I don't think there's any utility in viewing drugs as conferring some purported utility. Yet, I'm not so hot on the idea of legalizing them, as much as decriminalizing them.
Can you justify your claim that taking illegal drugs necessarily harms the community? On the face of it, that seems like a ridiculous statement.
I still don't understand why you think any community, let's consider just the immediate family, for example, is necessarily harmed by one of their members taking illegal drugs. Are you talking only about addictive drugs? All of the addictive drugs? Also, what about legal drugs? Are you saying that the user's community is harmed when she or he uses any drug at all? If not, then what precisely would it be about the illegality of a drug that makes it necessarily harmful?
yes yes "illegal." I noticed your focus on that earlier and figured we were on a philosophy site so we were above such considerations (isn't this debate, in a practical sense, about whether or not the drugs SHOULD be illegal?)
Quoting tim wood
This implies a COMPLETE lack of control over emotions, and that is exactly the problem I am referring to. Either you use your emotions, or they use you. And yes "control" is a much better word than use, but close enough for the analogy.
Quoting tim wood
That is exactly what your argument looks like to me. That was the point.
And your focus on "illegal" seems puzzling. While I am not trying to equate the 2, wasn't much of the Civil Rights Movement "illegal" and "harmful" to society? Should it not have occurred? Or would you just say IN THAT CASE the pros out-weigh the cons? With drugs being illegal, can't we EASILY say the CONS out-weigh the pros?
(2) If we want a healthy environment, then shopping should be illegal.
(3) We need a healthy environment to survive.
(4) Thus, shopping should be outlawed.
In conclusion, the community doesn't really know what is good for itself.
Let them eat drugs!
Would most of these harms to the community be wiped out if certain illegal drugs were decriminalized? For example (and this is just an example, not something I have encountered), take the person who uses magic mushrooms to help ease her anxiety and depression. As long as the person is doing it in their home and not operating any heavy machinery, and all of their daily responsibilities have been taken care of (never mind that many people can still perform duties while "high" on this drug); is the use of magic mushrooms harming the community given the drug is no longer criminal?
You could substitute a number of illegal drugs for magic mushrooms. I tend to agree with you, however, that herion is a hell of a bad drug.
Yeah, that's pretty funny. You asked him whether all sugar should be banned because his bad argument could lead to that conclusion, and then his response is to try to turn that on you, as though it was an implication of your argument instead of his.
Is it taking drugs that is the problem or is it that these drugs are illegal that is the problem? If some drug was legal in one country and illegal in another would the (im)morality of taking it depend on which country one was in?
I've longed maintained, "If the people in my community would take the meds they need to then I wouldn't be on them." Is that a challenge?
Later on, a smock decided, "What if we don't put the rats in a cage, what if we made them a rat paradise? Let's see what happens." The rats chose the water which wasn't laced with heroin.
I'm not trying to be argumentative with anyone, I'm on psychotropic or psychoactive drugs too. I have to try extra hard not to be argumentative.
I find it cannot be avoided in a philosophy forum, but one can still be civil. I'm not all the time, but one can. :wink:
So could you clarify which drugs you’re talking about? Alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, meth, codeine, morphine? Which are immoral to take?
I would say it depends on the individual's constitution, how accustomed to the particular drug they are, and how well they can function on it. Some illegal drugs help people function better. For example, some people I used to work with couldn't work or function without cannibis. Cannibis, for me, makes me not function. Some people can drink alchohol responsibiy. Most people cannot, and it is legal.
We don't need to challenge what hasn't been properly justified. A few friends sitting by a campfire in the woods or in their own home, minding their own business and having a good time, is not in itself a harm to the community, and not everyone in the community is narrow-minded and judgemental. I've met members of the community who are okay with this sort of thing, and are not jerks or squares.
No, not necessarily. That's your burden, not mine. If they were playing cards, would that matter? Would that be a harm to the community? You haven't reasonably justified that taking drugs in those circumstances is much different. And pointing to more extreme cases won't work, because not all cases are the same. It's unreasonable to tar with the same brush. And if you respond with something like "risk of harm", then you have a burden to explain how you're not just special pleading with drug taking, but you're presumably okay with other recreational activities which have a risk of harm, of which there are [I]many[/I].
Quoting tim wood
Yes, it's a British thing, and I alreay knew about the variation in spelling. The language is called "English" for a reason. I am English, and I speak English, not the bastardised American English.
I’m not saying that harm isn’t harm. I’m saying that you haven’t justified your assertion that any and all harm is immoral.
Saying that if something causes harm (of any degree) then it is immoral is a non sequitur.
All harm is harm but it might be that not all harm is immoral.
I used to sneak alcohol to my brother and sister when they were that age.
Quoting tim wood
Why? That wouldn’t address my concern. Rather I can sketch a scenario where harm might be caused by recreational drugs and yet the activity isn’t immoral - that of @S and his stoner friends camping in the woods.
Indeed. His argument is a great example of simplistic, black-and-white thinking.
We had a good time. We actually met a few members of the community who were absolutely fine with us being there, doing what we were doing. We weren't causing any harm. We were being respectful. We were by a river, and there were a few narrow boats nearby. The owners came by a few times, walking their dogs. We greeted each other, stroked the dogs, had a brief conversation, and one of them let us sit in his camping chair.
That seems to make sense to me. Supply and demand I suppose. Eliminate the profitability of drugs and the house of cards topples down on its own.
I'm the Son, the Child, my Dad & Mom loved the most and took the most pride in. My Son, Jason, was the only grandchild either of them knew when they were in their bodies. My Son now knows my bout with crystal-meth, the bullet (a year sentence) I served, and knows my 11 year victory over that drug.
Just sent my Son two hundred dollars the first of the month, his request. He asked me for money and I'll be sending him one hundred dollars every month June forward, the 200 dollars covered April & May.
6 years ago I made it my life's goal to beat my Co-Occurring dual diagnosis. I know the solution to the Hard Problem of Consciousness. Yeah, I got a bit crazy doing drugs and some people, family & friends, were hurt indirectly, but that's a glimpse at a very small picture in the grand scheme of things.
No regrets.
I didn't ignore them. I directly responded to them.
Would you call your addiction some form of self-medication? How do you rationalize the addiction part of your dual diagnosis?
A lot of people online, the communities where I've been arguing, label me a "theist" and then attack their own label, their own strawman argument. I attack them for being so stupid, but that's a part of my mental illness. If I really had it altogether then I'd love those people instead of attacking them back.
When we attack and insult another person there is a chemical explosion in our bodies, an emotionally charged psychic experience that transitions from the spiritual in a form of a pharmacological impact crossing the blood-brain barrier intact. Smoking cigarettes the impact is 7 seconds from inhalation. When we insult someone, both parties are physically infected contemporaneously, no time delay.
This all describes every aspect of what it means to be human. God has evolved us this way, to have this kind of effect on others. People who you insult and can't be impacted are the worst sort of psycho- & sociopaths.
I'm the last person in the world who rationalizes any of my addictions. I'm a huge porn addict, and a huge food addict. No rationalizing, boldly stating the Truth, the absolute truth. "Confess you sins one to another so that you can be healed."
Sorry for the long sermon.
Ok, understood. Though, to rationalize an addiction can be helpful in finding a way out of it.
I have ADD and have been prescribed many stimulant drugs. About a year ago I tried meth for the first time.
Been there done that...
What if the drugs are magic mushrooms, that were grown at home or picked in the fields? Where's the necessary harm in that?
Your reference to source seems to imply that by buying illegal drugs one would be supporting criminal activity, which is by definition harmful to communities. That may be so, but legal activities may also be harmful to communities. Gambling, online and in clubs and pubs, for example? Buying cheap goods from third world companies or buying pretty much anything form some multinationals you are supporting legal, but unethical exploitation and the terrible harm it causes to third world communities.
Conversely, we can be naive and claim that we don't know where the heroin someone is doing is not supporting evil empires or states, like the Taliban. Most drugs have some point of origin and fund some activity.
As I say, it would be naive to feign ignorance and claim that it's a non-issue. But, some drugs are rather harmlessly attained, as you mention magic mushrooms or pot. Not all drugs have been made by North Korea, for example.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/281787
Then you asked me about letting my younger sister take illegal drugs, but as per our first exchange you clarified that legality is irrelevant - some “bad” drugs might be legal in one country but it is still (allegedly) immoral to take them - and you counted alcohol as one of these “bad” drugs, so I explained that I was OK with my younger sister using a “bad” drug - but again, not that this has anything to do with my critique that you haven’t justified your assertion that causing harm of any degree is immoral.
So rather I think you’re the one trying to deflect by asking irrelevant questions that don’t address the missing piece of your argument. If you don’t justify your assertion that causing any kind of harm is immoral then your argument doesn’t get off the ground.
It's still not clear to me just what the issue is, though. I don't see how the illegality, per se, of a drug makes it harmful to the community. And hasn't made his claims any clearer, as far as I can tell.
If one wants to argue that obtaining an illegal drug from dealers could be supporting an industry that harms people and communities, then it should be pointed out that the same may be said for many legal products.
So, what it really comes down to is; what is the real difference between legal and illegal activities, morally speaking, if we are using harm to define something as immoral, given that at least some illegal activities do not seem to harm people and communities, whereas as at least some legal activities do seem to harm people and communities?
We just don't seem to be getting to the point at all on this issue, but just kind of going around and around, traversing a downward spiral. The end point will come when we all disappear up our own arses if we're not careful!
If we pass over the notion of harm it could be argued that it is wrong to break the law, and so ipso facto wrong to take illegal drugs.
But somehow I don’t think that this is what most anti-drugs people have in mind, as they seem to also oppose decriminalisation (on moral grounds?).
No, my position is that you haven't justified your assertion that if something causes harm then it is immoral. Perhaps some things are acceptable even if they cause harm.
Well, I think we can both agree that kids taking drugs is not really a good thing for society or any community. And, kids seeking out drugs, will invariably impact one's community some way or another.
But, looking at some method to asses the impact of drugs on a community, then I suppose if you're inclined to assume a utilitarian calculus, then, drugs will always retard the development of a well functioning society or community.
Utilitarianism seems to require a reduction in overall harm, but the punishment cannot obviously exceed the harm of the drug itself.
My position is that you should listen to what we're saying and what we're asking, and then respond properly, instead of responding to a question with a different question, or going off on a tangent which misses the point.
It isn't a salient point, and the reason why it isn't is because we're all aware of the existence of alcoholics, and that alcoholism is a problem. I don't think that anyone here would say that it's a good thing. And yet several of us are nevertheless making a point along the lines that it's okay to take at least some drugs in at least some circumstances. You are just talking past us with much of what you're saying. It's not reasonable to focus on more extreme cases in this situation, because they don't do anything towards arguing against the points we're making. I have an inkling that that might be a fallacy of some sort. Broadly speaking, it would be a fallacy of irrelevance.
Is everyone who drinks alcohol an alcoholic? No, obviously not. So then we can cut out the cases of alcoholism and narrow it down to the other cases. The reasonable thing to do here, Tim, is to think about potential counterexamples to your claims, not to single out the more clearcut cases where it is a bad thing.
Do you want to be reasonable? Or do you want to push an agenda by singling out more obviously bad cases to push the notion that drugs are bad, mmmkay?
Viz. hippies
A community of narrow-minded jerks will always retard the development of the open-minded and positive philosophy and lifestyle associated with hippies.
:flower: :flower: :flower:
Heyyyy man. Can't we all just get along, mannnn.
It's so lame.
Possible explanations would be that he's not a good listener or just wants to push an agenda.
Don't get me wrong, fuck Society (qua. the entrenched system) too.
Screw us guys, you're going home?
Any time you make a South Park reference, you get two thumbs up.
:up: :up:
You've done a good job at highlighting a likely double standard. The problem here is that Tim seems more interested in pushing the line that drugs are bad than in such criticism. I wish I could say that this is an isolated problem, but it doesn't seem to be. It seems to be a general problem spanning other topics.
@Wallows is another one who usually doesn't respond properly when I make a criticism of this form, relating to recreational activities.
I believe such a thing is inevitable.
That it's annoying, I agree with. That it's puzzling, I would qualify. It would definitely be puzzling if we knew nothing of psychology, or if everyone was perfectly rational. But neither of those are true. It's less puzzling when thought about in the right way. It can be easy to slip into the expectation that others be rational, and to end up puzzled when we find that they're not. People can get emotionally invested in something to the point that it interferes with rationality, and with self-awareness. They often [I]think[/I] they're being rational.
I don't know how else you'd explain that behaviour, except in terms of psychology.
Well, you asked for some method at determining the valence of drug use in a community, did you not?
I responded with advocating a utilitarian ethic as some means at addressing your concerns.
Then I ought to ask, what's wrong with utilitarian ethics in your view?
Interesting. We have slightly different priorities and ways of approaching this issue, it seems. I often just say what I think, if I think that it's true, even if I think that it could be taken the wrong way, which it often is. I tend to see it more as their responsibility to be objective about it.
Taking some illegal drugs, perhaps, e.g. @S and his friends camping in the woods.
I think maybe a better response to a repeated request that has already been met is not to reply with a repetition of the answer already given. Otherwise this discussion could end up sixty pages long, like the discussion on morality, or "Groundhog Day", as I like to call it. Maybe a telling off or an encouragement to listen better would be more effective.
I believe in Love (God), like Cher auto-tune signs, I believe in "Love after love." When it comes to the mind I have a somewhat different approach. I actually want to know what in the hell is going on.
In the midst of trying to change the life of a fairly young woman with a few mental health issues. My heart really goes out to you. Surround yourself with the best people.
Doing drugs, being an addict, I missed some times I could have and should have spent with my son. It's not my first choice to use Ted Kaczynski to back me up here but I recently watched the Unabomber series on Netflix. He says, "You have to sacrifice one thing to gain another."
When I (a person, a featherless biped) am addicted to drugs then my whole world (life) revolves around getting the drug, using the drug, having the drug on hand to be used, getting the money for the drug and so forth in addition to everything else a person must do. Drug addiction leaves time for little else. Hell, I missed funerals & stuff!
Those are probably the only people who have truly forgiven me. God's explained it to them.
Janus is right in saying, "Do not murder." I didn't, but I was neglecting a philosophy years earlier I swore to live by, it's from the movie/book, The Razor's Edge: There's a debt to pay for the privilege of being alive. The sin of omission has been a big one for me.
6 years before I began abusing crystal-meth I was a volunteer here in Riverside at the Van Horne Youth Center, like a Juvenile Detention Center. Some of those young men (boys) cried their hearts out to me. They knew I was there for them, that I wouldn't judge them, they recognized my Christian spirit and knew God/Love was at work in my life. I did love each and every one of them. My handler was a man still here in town, much older than I am, he must be 75 or 80 by now. Charlie Sinatra. Catholic Charities.
I'm back on track, I've got a few hundred soaps prepared for the mentally ill at the Wellness fair in less than a month, and a volunteer with that many as well. I make each soap as though it's the Gift of Rapture, I'm intentionally trying to lift these people's spirits out of their bodies.
Sorry for so long, Tim. Maybe it's all God's perfect will, maybe I'm the person I am today providing the most beautiful things anyone has ever laid on eyes, and I'm doing it for free precisely because of the fuck-up I once was?
1. It's wrong to break the law. Why? 'Cause Socrates said so.
2. It's not about harm. Includes harm in his list of reasons why it's wrong.
3. Community! That's it. That's the argument apparently. We're just supposed to assume that the whole community thinks and feels as he does, and that it automatically takes precedence in moral matters.
4. Getting the drugs! (Ignores Janus's criticism, among others).
5. Planning with others! So what? He never completes the thought. He just assumes that it's obviously wrong, like planning a murder or something, instead of, say, planning a picnic.
6. Consequences! Another point which has been dealt with previously. My life, my liberty, my responsibility. Again, just because you're a conservative, that doesn't mean that you're right by default. That's not a valid argument. And you haven't overcome the criticism of your double standard in being anti-drug, yet not anti-extreme sports, for example. Why aren't you anti- anything that has the risk of consequences? Because you're not here to be logical, you're here to push the right-wing anti-drug agenda. That's why. If you won't answer the question, I will.
Depends on where you live, don't you think? It also depends on whether one is addicted to a drug or not. Some drugs are just flat out dangerous and irresponsible to use, like heroin or methamphetamine. Some drugs have some utility, like pot or MDMA. So, I don't think painting with a wide brush is apt here, as some drugs have their uses. Also, the same rules don't apply to countries you don't reside in. Like Portugal, where all drugs have become decriminalized or Holland, which is eons more liberal than places like the States wrt. to drugs.
But that's all he has to go by, and his pallette consists of just black and white. No grey. If it's illegal, it's wrong. If it causes harm, it's bad. If it's a drug, it's bad. If you take them, you're irresponsible. Community! Therefore wrong.
It's like debating a child. Seriously. I remember when I was a child and I had the same sort of naive moral outlook that I'd picked up from the unthinking status quo. I remember being kind of shocked as a school child at my friends who had started to smoke weed, because of the scaremongering and the illegality. Then my eyes were opened.
Glad I didn't imagine all of that :smile:
Yeah; but, some (not all) drugs are dangerous and irresponsible to use. So, I can see some merit to his argument about harm reduction. Funny enough, you might like this place called "Bluelight", a forum for drug users, which is all about harm reduction. So, even the most staunch drug users are aware of the fact that drugs can be a bad thing or at least can be harmful to the user if not others related or close to a drug user...
No, they're all dangerous. Even paracetamol. Just read the little piece of paper you get in the packet. And so are lots of things. So no drugs, no bowling, no skiing, no dancing, no crossing the road, no using public transport, no anything, basically.
As for my responsibilities, what makes you think that that's even any of your business? If you're trying to be helpful, then fine. I know the risks. You can tell that I'm an intelligent, thoughtful, well-read person. Of course I know the risks. It's my life, my decision. I've been skydiving. I could have ended up dead or paralysed. My mum would have been distraught. But that still doesn't make it immoral. I work in a job that involves health and safety risks, just like virtually every single other job. That doesn't make working immoral. Should we ban sugar? Start a war on emotions?
The double standard needs to be addressed.
Harm reduction? Okay. That's way more sensible than anything that Tim has said. That's much more productive than black-and-white thinking.
Lol, then be facetious. Ain't none of my business what you take to get you through the day or night.
Anyway, if one assumes such a nonchalant attitude towards drugs, then all I can say is so be it.
Haha, I can't tell that. It's just a forum and I can't surmise what or who you may be.
Yeah, I already read your post twice or so. Still, not everyone lives in the US where we still have pot as a Schedule I drug. If I happened to live in Portugal where all drugs have been decriminalized, then does your argument still apply?
I wasn't being facetious. I was indicating the lack of a filter in these simplistic comments about drugs, including your own comments. There are serious health risks with [i]any[/I] drug, including paracetamol. And there are serious health risks in many activities, including crossing the road and going up a ladder. So there's danger almost everywhere you look. So saying that some drugs are dangerous isn't saying much, and actually, as I said, and as a matter of fact, [i]all[/I] drugs are dangerous.
But yeah, whether I'm nonchalant about it or not, it's my decision.
Quoting Wallows
Okay, well I [i]am[/I] intelligent, thoughtful, and well-read, and you really should have picked that up by now. I have read and memorised a lot of information about drugs.
Good question. I don't know. It seems that decriminalization was an alternative to the conservative agenda over here in the US.
I'm also from California where the black market will never be beat despite legalization of marijuana, which is the drug the OP had in mind.
Quoting tim wood
Yes. Though Canada is right now the leader in making marijuana legal on a national level.
Quoting tim wood
Assessment of their utility isn't my background. But, again talking about marijuana it seems that the leaders in placing a value on its utility are Israeli medical professionals. Even places like Israel are changing their minds about the medicinal value of pot. Other drugs like heroin or crystal meth have little known utility apart from temporary pain management to treating ADHD. And methamphetamine can actually be obtained as a prescription here in the US.
Go figure...
No, it will certainly not suffice. Bad arguments [i]never[/I] suffice. And inappropriate comparisons make for bad arguments, whether you like hearing that or not. I think this is a guilt by association fallacy, actually.
Quoting tim wood
But you're one of those annoying people who asks a simpleminded black-and-white question, which is itself a problem, and then complains when I don't give a simpleminded black-and-white answer, but instead highlight the problem in the question. You set me up for failure. Why don't you ask a more intelligent question? A question that conveys an understanding of the complexity of the subject?
Well, my second living deals with synthesizing and distributing novel research chemicals from China to the world, so I'm not sure why this would give me any authority on the matter of assessing the merits of taking XYZ drug as does your non-facetious claim that you have memorized a great deal of info on the effects drugs have.
Anyway, since you know what's best for you, then I might as well just say, whatever floats your boat.
Can you ask a better question? One that isn't so simplistic and unspecific? This isn't a simple matter. When is that going to sink in?
Also, 2-DPMP or Ivory Wave was a direct causal link in the laws that got passed in the UK banning all designer drugs, bath salts, and research chemicals.
You misunderstood my point. I mentioned that because being well-informed clearly relates to responsibility. That's not unique to drug taking, that's true in general.
Of course I recognise that it's a simple question. That's the problem!
Well, trying to reduce the whole issue to a matter of taste or preference really isn't going to fly in @tim wood's mind. As to why this hasn't been pointed out already baffles me.
Yes, you're most likely right, because he doesn't think outside of the box. I know he doesn't like me saying things like that, but it's true. He's a very conventional thinker.
I never said that and I don't know why Portugal opted for decriminalization. Perhaps they wanted to become the next best narcotourist hub or destination after The Netherlands... Not being serious here.
Haha!
Yes, a box is enough entertainment for Oksa. How is she?
(1) If it is illegal is doing it necessarily immoral? If so, why?
(2). If something is illegal does doing it necessarily cause harm or suffering to someone?
Re (2) If so, can something be immoral for any other reason than that it is illegal and therefore causes harm or suffering to someone? If so, what other reason(s)?
Re (2) If not, can something be immoral just because it is illegal?
(3) If something causes harm but is not illegal is it necessarily immoral?
If Tim answers these question unambiguously, then I think some progress should be made towards furthering this discussion which seems to have stalled and be sinking into a quagmire of distortion and misunderstanding.
Given that we prescribe in the great States, amphetamine or Ritalin to kids for ADHD, I find it highly dubious to say that pot should be illegal. Marijuana only became illegal because of the cotton and paper industry in the US. More people die yearly from aspirin than from marijuana. It's incredibly hard to overdose on marijuana if not impossible.
LSD-25 was created by the CIA through their MK-ULTRA program on assessing the possibility of creating Manchurian candidates or some really far out ideas like mind control. If you go deep enough into YouTube you can find testimonies by ordinary citizens about being test subjects for the MK-ULTRA program. Sounds wacky; but, it's true. After a psychedelic trip, there are irreversible changes that are elicited through epigenetic mechanisms. Core facets of personality are altered to some degree, such as openness, oneness, and appreciation of what one has. Microdosing LSD-25 is a hot fad nowadays. People from Silicon Valley are taking it under the assumption that it encourages creativity, productivity, and awareness.
Personally, I've tried many drugs and became addicted to some hard stuff like meth and 4F-MPH (analog of Ritalin; but, super potent and strong stuff). The military even assessed the possibility of amphetamine increasing the morale of soldiers during WWII. The results did not warrant further research on the topic, and the Nazis were quick to stop giving their soldiers Pervitin after seeing the emergence of psychosis after some nights of not having any sleep for the poor soldier. They even thought that sleep could be done away with entirely, which nowadays would seem absurd. Yet, we have created ergogenics like Modafinil for airline pilots or for those suffering from narcolepsy.
MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) is perhaps the only association investigating how psychedelics can be used to treat anxiety, phobias, OCD, alcoholism, addictions, depression, and some long list of other ailments of the mind. Ayahuasca is probably going to make a comeback to treat stuff like addictions and phobias. Ketamine is already being sold as a nasal spray in the States as of recent.
There's a lot to learn from these compound that scientists are researching and hoping with anticipation get government funding for.
I have always resented the "drugs are bad" mantra that goes around in schools. Deterrence just doesn't work against these drugs. It hasn't worked for alcohol during the prohibition period, and won't nowadays. I've heard that if you remove the "Whoo" factor or the taboo from such drugs, people would go on just fine with them.
Anyway, my two pennies.
Obviously by "simple question", I don't mean easily answerable without a problem, which is what you seem to be deliberately suggesting, in spite of my prior clarification. I mean a question with a simplistic structure which suggests ignorance of the complexity of the issue.
You want a simple answer to the simple question? Okay. The answer is: it depends.
Well, I tend to treat this place as a theater where instead of suspending disbelief I suspend judgment. The only way to maintain one's views while integrating new positions and thoughts on a topic. You should try it sometime. :sweat:
Quoting tim wood
Yeah, I am cognizant of their deleterious effects along with potential benefits. Please keep in mind, that most of what I said in regards to drugs are meant to be taken in controlled settings and not haphazardly willy nilly on a whim.
Quoting tim wood
I'd like to point out that if you want to profess the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, then I can't stop you from doing so.
Quoting tim wood
The only instances where this question has popped up in my mind is where was my money going and who was it supporting. I've taken many drugs produced by labs in China. I've been careful to never indulge in stuff like heroin (most likely originating from Afghanistan or Southern American cartels) or cocaine (South American cartels). I have no interest in heroin or cocaine. Now, I would redefine the morality of taking drugs as a more nuanced understanding as a clinical approach and understanding this in terms of not "good or bad" but rather to what end are these drugs being consumed(?) My understanding from my own experience is that self-medication was the primary motive for taking (predominantly) stimulants. I have pretty bad depression and ADD-PI (Attention Deficit Disorder- Primarily Inattentive). Stimulants would temporarily alleviate the ADD and depression and allow me to focus on schoolwork and some intellectually stimulating tasks, like reading a book.
Anyway, the issue really is about addiction in my opinion. If meth wasn't so addictive (I still crave it), then I'd be all for it. Pot isn't addictive; but, if my memory of statistics is correct it doesn't bode well for academic achievement, rather retards it.
Back when I was in college, some large percentage of the class I was taking an econometrics class dropped out, while the ones who remained were on Adderall. So, I might as well ask you the question, which isn't so loaded as the one in this thread, is it immoral to take performance-enhancing drugs?
Your concept of what constitutes a community is somewhat ambiguous. How do you explain the fact that certain states have opted for legalizing marijuana and yet, we still have on national level illegality towards the drug?
Quoting tim wood
Yeah, and this explains why we can't have nice things. It's a gross ad hoc generalization to assume that duty supersedes any chance of making a humanistic mistake such as taking drugs. And, again, you seem to be advocating a Kantian ethical concern deriving from what a community deems as acceptable. So, I refer you back to my first paragraph of this post.
Quoting tim wood
I can empathize with this view. Yet...
Quoting tim wood
That's daft and doesn't really make sense. If the level of insight into their own condition is impaired by their addiction, then how does that make them culpable for the alleged immorality they are going about doing with their lives?
Well, you've placed your Kantian hero on a pedestal and gave him some sort of authority over all matters pertaining to morality and ethics. Quite an oppressive and stifling person to be around, hence not many nice things can be had with him or her.
Quoting tim wood
You say that disparagingly. I find the sovereignty of states, as some sort of release valve for a populace.
Quoting tim wood
Yes, indeed there is a conflict here. Your authoritarian would be Kantian dictator is clearly infallible. So, I'll just keep mum to myself about the issue of drugs if I even encounter this Kantian ubermensch one day.
Quoting tim wood
To psychologize the issue, why the excessive compartmentalization? It's almost as if you're having trouble coming to terms with the fact that there is an opioid epidemic in the US or meth is being shipped by the ton from labs in Mexico to the States, et cetera, et cetera.
The problem I see with an affirmative answer is that if something is necessarily immoral if it is illegal, that entails that when something is legalized it is not longer necessarily immoral, and this seems like a form of moral relativism, since morality is tied to legal convention, which is obviously relative to different times and places. An example: homosexual activity was illegal in many countries unitl quite recently, and still is in others. Does it follow that homosexual activity was/is immoral in those countries where it was/is illegal, but no longer (necessarily) immoral when and where it is legalized?
You seem to suggest that even though if something is illegal it is definitely immoral, that doing it may nonetheless have greater benefits than detriments, and hence it may be worth doing regardless of its immorality. That makes little sense to me, since if its benefits outweigh its detriments, I would say it is more moral than immoral.I don't see it as cut and dried; every act may have some degree of immorality attached to it. For example, when you buy cheap products from overseas, you may be supporting sweatshops or even slavery.
For the sake of clarity and brevity, let's deal with this question first, and then if we can reach some satisfactory agreement in regard to it, move on to others.
It also means no, except for exceptions.
It means either, depending on circumstance.
Quoting tim wood
You didn't ask. That's why it was a problematic question. It depends on a whole bunch of factors to the point that it's rash to even make a judgement without knowing the full details of a particular case. The question should be, "Is this particular case immoral?", but for that we'd need to know more, so my response would be, "Tell me as much as possible about it".
Now you appear to be contradicting yourself, but perhaps I have misunderstood. When I asked if something that is illegal is necessarily immoral ("necessarily" here being obviously in respect to its illegality since that is the connection we are discussing) you answered affirmatively. Now you seem to be allowing that some illegal things may be moral with respect to their illegality; which would seem to mean that illegal things are not necessarily immoral.
It's perhaps off-topic, but I am going to correct you on this. LSD-25 was first synthesized by Albert Hoffmann in the late thirties from lysergic acid which is a derivative of ergot fungus. He accidentally discovered its psychedelic effects about five years later. It was in the fifties that the CIA tested it on human subjects to determine if it had any potential for mind control.
Ah indeed. Don't know how that slipped my mind. His famous bicycle ride comes to mind.
Yes, it's become something of a beloved iconic image for the tripsters.
Hear, hear. What an appalling and ignorant thing to say. An addict needs help, not condemnation. They've become a victim to their addiction, which would be corrupting them and causing them distress.
Amen. :pray:
The person as described by you is bifurcated, with the perpetrator as their addiction and the victim as the addicted. I'm not denying the possible truth of this description, just that it's curious. You have a drunken homunculus of sorts puppeteering an otherwise pure and true homunculus.
This revisits our prior discussion, where you assert diminished responsibility for acts committed while intoxicated. It seems to absolve people of the acts of their corrupted will instead of holding people responsible for the acts of their will.
Yes, I thought of that discussion as well. This is another example of diminished responsibility. The diminished responsibility approach not only more accurately reflects the truth in terms of what's going on in our brains relating to the control we have over our actions, it results in a better society, where treatment, not punishment, is the focus.
Interesting word assignment. I had to look up "bifurcated" and I am trying to put it into context here. Maybe you could reword it for me?
Going on what I think you are suggesting is that an addict sees themselves as "victims" and though that may be true for some, it is not my story. Having said that, being a victim in other circumstances and there was a true living perpetrator? Once you are able to work through the crap and compartmentalize what has happened to you, the moment you realize you are a "victim", in that very moment in time you have a choice. You can continue where you are being abused and call yourself an enabler of your addiction OR you can choose to do the hard work necessary to become a survivor.
It appears to be a simple twist of words but the shift in placing responsibility, squarely where it belongs after you realize you are being victimized, makes all the difference in who you emerge from the storm as.
I was aware it is a question. You appear to be asking if I agree (presumably with you?) "that there are illegal things that are not immoral, but moral - with respect to their illegality?"
I interpreted that question in the way that seemed most obvious. If I got it wrong then please explain what you did mean.
I was addressing [I]your[/I] comment. If it was off topic, then you only have yourself to blame.
Quoting tim wood
Maybe you should speak more clearly and think more orderly. I don't think that anyone else here sees any merit in your convoluted, higgledy-piggledy system of classifications which you seem to be making up as you go along.
All good so far.
Quoting tim wood
Uh, and this is where you fail. You fail because you struggle to think outside of the box. Someone who applied critical thinking skills would be able to quite easily come up with counterexamples. Though of course, you would just deny these counterexamples or contradict yourself.
Quoting tim wood
Given that you began that little rant by begging the question in your first sentence, everything that follows is completely irrelevant, logically.
A crime is a crime, and a silly question is a silly question.
I am sorry if I came across as trying to separate a persons' free will from their addiction because I do believe they are tightly intertwined, regardless of the reason for the addiction.
What are you suggesting by "if you can get your knees to stop jerking, you'll get it" ?
Because I don't "get it".
There's no blanket answer to that, as I've already made clear. Why are you asking me poorly considered questions, one at a time, at a snails pace? Do you think that that meets an acceptable standard? Because I do not.
Ad hominems aside, what's the issue here. Again, it's as if you have a hard time coming to terms with our drug-crazed culture here in the great States.
That's ungrammatical. I think you meant, "No, you haven't".
And yes, I have. You must have lost concentration to the extent that you forgot about earlier comments I've made such as this one:
Quoting S
You do this sort of thing a lot. You don't display good listening skills and people end up having to repeat themselves a lot with you.
The rest of your reply consists in irrelevant personal attacks, so I've ignored it.
Challenge failed.
So, the issue is how you framed the issue. According to my interactions with you in this thread, you operate on the basis an individualistic Kantian categorical imperative of not breaking the law, which is understandable. Though, what S is doing is not criticizing the Kantian individual, rather the laws that govern his or her behavior. So, don't take it personally, is all I'm saying.
Quoting tim wood
:rofl:
Exactamundo!
Quoting Wallows
Fat chance of that happening!
Well, you are a balloon popper and button presser, so whatever floats your boat, I suppose.
I'm not going to deny that, but I'll say that if you allow yourself to be startled by popped balloons, and if you allow your buttons to be pressed, then that's a sign of weakness, and weakness is something which one should learn to overcome. If you become strong enough, this ceases to be a problem.
There's always a moral beneath the surface.
Oh yeah, Freddy rears his head in agreement if at all possible with an ubermensch.
Quoting S
Yeah, and the abyss is pretty deep, so what?
Anyway, I see the issue in exalting the laws that govern the behavior of the Kantian that @tim wood is talking about. The problem is actually the personification of the laws with the individual. Tim, would you like to comment on this fusion of laws with the individual, which doesn't adhere to collective wisdom or opinion. There's something fishy about this whole concept despite its psychological appeal.
I'm not sure if Socrates took joy in being the gadfly. Maybe it was some proto-Kantian duty he sought to fulfill.
Duty to what? Or who? Anyway, I speak my mind and take joy in playing with mice. That's just the sort of gadfly I am. A catlike gadfly, I guess. A catfly? My duty is to myself, my principles, my desires, my values, and my whims. Me, me, me.
Well, we've rather taken a solipsistic turn, haven't we?
I think its the other way around: serious crimes are illegal because they are immoral, because they perpetrate major harm on individuals and the community. Some so-called crimes are illegal merely because it suits the power elites that they should be illegal.
I have. It goes like this. I point out a counterexample, acknowledged by Michael and others. You then dismiss it and ramble about some phantom harm, the irrelevancy that it is illegal, mention the community for the umpteenth time, and that sort of thing. I then give one of my brutally frank, exceptionally logical, and, as ever, sharply witty criticisms. You then get upset and personally attack me, or ramble some more, or a bit of both, or you revert to silly question mode.
The Civil Rights Movement:
Sit-ins
Freedom Rides
Rosa Parks
Any black or white person that married the other ethnicity
American Slavery Era:
Underground Railroad (EVERYONE involved)
Runaway slaves
A slave that protected another slave from a beating
Pre- Magna Carta:
EVERYONE who in any way disagreed with the Monarch.
Ancient Rome:
Most (at least "many") of Jesus' actions including certain times he cured the sick (even if Jesus is god, he still broke the law).
India and its caste system:
To the "untouchables", any action that would improve their status in society.
Nazis and Stalin:
Anyone who resisted. Schindler.
Oh! I almost forgot Africa:
Take your pick, Apartheid, Imperialism, Slave Trade, etc
Surely there are many more similar examples (I am actually somewhat disappointed in myself for this rather meager list).
I obviously do not understand the idea at all that ALL ILLEGAL ACTIONS ARE IMMORAL. Seems ridiculous.
Why are they worth breaking, if not for moral reasons? When people broke slavery laws, they were doing it for moral reasons, as with Schindler.
Why does history say “yes”, if not for moral reasons?
Again, aren't we painting with a broad brush here? I will acknowledge that some laws just flat out should never be broken, like murder or theft or libel; but, drug use? Not quite sure about drug use.
So, we have turned towards some moral absolutism or objective infallible truths about drug use. I don't see how you arrived or anyone for the matter could arrive at this conclusion.
Then elucidate how have you arrived at your conclusion, because we can run around in circles saying that drugs are bad because they are illegal, and they are illegal because they are bad.
Forgive me if I have construed a straw man out of your position; but, you haven't been entirely forthcoming in presenting your reasoning.
Oh dear...
Quoting tim wood
How presumptuous. I'm going to assume you think I've been trolling you or some other nonsense, when in fact I'm quite interested in how you are deriving your conclusions. Or as a teacher would say, "Show your work." Maybe I would be able to learn something from you.
Your not really making sense. Its not immoral to break a law that isnt moral and in fact morality sometimes demands you break the law.
I think I have. The OP asked, "Is it immoral to take illegal drugs" which most people understood to be a discussion of the morality of taking drugs that happen to be illegal (the main point would be SHOULD they be illegal).
Then you dropped a philosophical whopper on everybody:
Quoting tim wood
You are aware that most of us in this thread strongly disagree with that? (well I do anyway, I think others agree if I am reading their posts correctly) Also, that is a huge philosophical topic of its own. You might as well have said, "of course it is immoral, God said so" and then got angry when we all stopped and said "wait, how do you know there is a God?"
I haven't mocked you, while I don't deny others have. So, nobody is pissing on your shoes and claiming it is raining here, or not me at least.
Give me some reading material, as you claim you aren't here to preach or teach; but, share some thoughts, which aren't entirely clear to me as of yet.
Morality and Law are not the same thing. This should be obvious given the huge historical examples where a law was very clearly not moral. Another thing to consider is a moral that you hold can be made illegal, and then you are suddenly immoral regardless of the merits of your original moral position. Failing to recognise the distinction is non-sensical, it renders morality meaningless, arbitrary. A lawmaker could make anything moral or immoral, no matter its merit, no matter if the lawmaker was crazy, or evil. It makes no sense.
Thats my case above. Refer to it in your counter arguments because im not going to repeat it next time you ask me to “make your case!”. Ive done so, and clearly pointed it out to you now.
You are free to not make the distinction between law and morality, but then you need to make that case before asserting it is immoral not to follow any particular law.
Okay, I'm not well versed in Kant, as much as I should be... Plato, I'm more acquainted with.
Quoting tim wood
Hmm, that's a tricky one. Wasn't it Emerson or Thoreau that watched the village ablaze and did nothing, while afterward he was imprisoned for his inaction?
But, if you're looking for figureheads to prop up, then perhaps Nelson Mandela needs mentioning here, don't you think?
So, let me try and be more explicit. What's your issue here as you seem to have taken a combative tone? Returning to the OP, and what I have said, marijuana is legal in my state yet illegal on a federal level. You seem to have turned a blind eye on this fact, which puzzles me.
If the law and morality are distinct, then its only immoral to break a law that is moral. Thus when you ask if it is immoral to do illegal drugs what you are really asking is whether or not it is immoral to do drugs.
I don't know if it's been pointed out yet, but if illegality equates to immorality, then the state is the ultimate authority when it comes to determining good and evil. Fascism, to me, is a very dangerous prospect.
Im not going to answer your question, as it doesnt address anything Im saying. Its just you reasserting what you have already claimed. This is merri-go-round discussion, but im not going to play with you. You asked me to make my case, I did. You have chosen to ignore it.
It is only immoral in the eyes of the state. This does not necessarily hold true to the opponent of state law. A criminal has every right to consider it his ethical duty to break the law.
But, the greatest problem with regarding state law as the ultimate authority on good and evil, is that it validates the moral right of tyrannies like the Soviets or Nazis. If state law is morally right, then it is impossible to argue that the holocaust and red terror were evil.
All this is OK in principle, but when it comes to breaking actual laws, which may or may not be moral; the "in principle" argument fails.
Yes, i think you are right.
Hmmm, it seems so foreign to me that I would barely know where to begin. I enjoy discussing the minutia of morality, but in real life I view morality as being most significant when it is difficult. If it is just the way I would behave anyway, then why bother calling it morality. Therefor the need to break a law to live by a higher "moral law" would actually be definitionally positive moral behavior (by my standard).
Take Schindler (from Schindler's List) as an easy example. Schindler's action were more impressively moral BECAUSE they were illegal. Notice too that his behavior was not just a little illegal (like drugs), it was death penalty stuff. That only increased the positive morality of his decision.
If you can explain to me why Schindler's actions were immoral, then maybe I will understand where you are coming from.
Oh and to simplify my understanding of morality - Good moral behavior SHOULD be done. Bad moral behavior SHOULD NOT be done. Notice that makes the lesser of two evils (assuming only 2 options) a GOOD moral decision.
I don't suppose you can point me to anything written by any of these guys that explicitly states "breaking the law is always immoral"?
I am not going read those works in their entirety (again for MLK and Gandhi) just because you say it is there. Surely you know of one sentence that supports your argument?
Doesn't Thoreau actually describe it as "a duty" to disobey unjust laws? I don't know Kant well enough, but wouldn't every "duty" be a positive moral behavior?
Quoting tim wood
You may have been responding to something more specific, but I am not worried about finding morality in these works. It is the specific claim that "it is always immoral to break the law" that we need to find. One can find a philosopher to support almost any idea, but that is how EXTREME I find "it is always immoral to break the law"; I am not sure a single one of these philosophers will provide any DIRECT support (my philosophy knowledge is weak at best, so you could definitely get me with a gotcha! here; but your claim is so bizarre to me that I am willing to risk it).
It is always UNETHICAL to break the law. Personal beliefs may render the ethics immoral to the individual.
I'm curious, if something being immoral doesn't necessarily mean one should not do it (breaking a law for example), then what information does the term convey?
If I say to you X is immoral, what do you now know about X that you did not before?
law is about right and wrong, and morality is about what is good and bad. They do not coincide exactly.
Most people believe that we are naturally free, and laws impose restrictions. Legality is defined by a political system. In fact, the natural political state is totalitarianism, but rulers found that their subjects rebelled, and asked philosophers, 'what must I do to stop my subjects rebelling?' The rules imposed by law are those which society found necessary to preserve peace. So in fact laws exist not to restrict freedom, but to keep the peace. One may disagree with their reasoning, but that is how they are made.
Those rules do not necessarily coincide with a persons morality. A person may believe that it is good not to drive a car faster than 20mph, because if you go any faster, you might be unable to avoid hitting wildlife on the road. In fact I have known people that believe this (usually vegans).
However, if laws dictate that others can drive much faster, this is a hazard, in fact, you can be arrested on the freeway for driving too slow. It isn't a common problem, but it did happen to me once, I was in an unfamiliar area, and I got pulled over for driving too slow.
I could argue that what I was doing was good, but it was still illegal, because if people drove at 20mph when everyone else is driving at 70mph, people would get hurt. My morality says going slow is a good thing. The law requires something different to keep the peace.
I don't understand how your idiosyncratic history of law is related to my post? I asked how, if some immoral act should nonetheless be done, the term 'immoral' carries any actual information. I can't see a linked between that question and your personal definition of the terms.
Confusion aside, what evidence are you drawing on to support your claims that "In fact, the natural political state is totalitarianism, but rulers found that their subjects rebelled, and asked philosophers, 'what must I do to stop my subjects rebelling?'"?
Quoting ernestm
This seems on the face of it to be unlikely. In democracies like the ones I imagine most of of us live in, the laws are proposed by prospective governments in order to attract votes, and if elected they are expected to enact those laws. I can't really see how that system links to 'peace'. It seems entirely designed to ensure that those actions which it is popular to prohibit become prohibited. The cause of that popularity is not in any way ensured.
What I am trhying to draw for you, in something that otherwise require 200,000 words, is a differentiation between the origin of law, and the origin of morality. While you make disagree with the results, laws were originally designed because the natural state, before the concept of law is brought into a government, is for the ruler to decide whatever he wants in dictatorial style, and no one has any freedom at all. The dictator controls all. What happens is a consequence is that the edicts cause rebellion and war. So now, skipping forward 50,00 words, laws originate, not as strictures on the citizens, but as remnants of what strictures the government cannot avoid without disturbing the peace.
Subsequently there is corruption, both legally and morally. The point Im making is that the origins of both moral and legal systems are entirely separate. There's no reason to expect them to be the same.
I didn't ask you to re-state your assertion, I asked what evidence you were basing it on, how have you reached this conclusion?
Quoting ernestm
I agree. I don't follow how that is related either to the point I was making about the meaning of the term "immoral", nor to the question of why it is necessarily immoral to break the law.
Oh. thats easy. Its called history.
What kind of an answer is that? I presumed your evidence was somewhere in history, having ruled out the possibility of it being located in the future! I was hoping for something a bit more specific.
What historians and legal scholars generally note, sir, is that the earliest system of authority is tribal. Perhaps with justifications such as contact with dead spirits, or whatever, but whatever the case, the tribe chief has absolute authority and can tell anyone to do anything, with force if necessary, and no one else can overrule it for any reason. It persisted in Australia and Africa until recently.
After that, the next system of authority was despotic, and frequently the despot was also considered a God. Besides a tiny amount of democracy which was repeatedly wiped out, this condition persisted from Mesopatamia through China and Egypt until:
* 400BC, in China, when Guan-Zhong formed the first system of law there (totally unknown to virtually the entire West ever since); but it was wiped out by the era of a hundred kingdoms, and then the early and middle dynasties; and law did not emerge as something in any way independent of the emperor's authority until Neoconfucianists such as Cheng Yi in the 11th century; and even then, the emperor still had god like power.
* in the West, until ~550AD, when finally Emperor Justinian formed the first codified system of law that could not be overturned at whim by higher officials. Sadly, the Roman Empire almost immediately fell apart and was replaced by the Holy Roman Empire and reverted to feudalism, which is not much more than tribalism. that continued through the dark ages until Aquinas' Summa in 1274.
* In the Middle East, divine law was under the bizarre interpretations of the church without any formalization until Averroes in the 12th century.
* And in the Americas, tribal and despotic rule still persists in some parts, but was most significantly curtailed, in the 18th century, by the formation of the United States
That is to say, the majority of history provides very little recognition of the law you assume to be so obvious. There were rules and people who enforced them here and there, but even in most of those cases it was decided by ad hoc decisions that could be over-ruled at whim, and this abstraction you folks believe should somehow be equivalent to morality is rather, not to say the least, a flash in the pan in ~3500 years of recorded history.
Where on earth are you getting this from? If you can find me a single example of a tribal chief wielding absolute authority I'd be surprised, let alone a general trend. Hunter-gatherers are renowned for their strictly enforced egalitarianism. Just Google "hunter-gather political system", or alternatively do...well... any research whatsoever...
Laws can be derived and enforced communally, no authority is required. Meat-sharing, for example, is strictly enforced in most hunter gatherer communities. It is not enforced by the 'chief', nor is the rule determined by him. The rule is both determined and enforced by the community as a whole.
Quoting ernestm
You initially responded to my comment. I presumed you had an argument to make. You first made the claim that laws are to keep the peace, I asked you what mechanism caused his when laws are, in fact, created by governments and there doesn't seem to be any reason why they should all be about peace. We only got sidetracked into this because you made the outrageous suggestion that all tribes were headed by authoritarian megalomaniacs, I remain in the dark as to why.
thats a custom, not a law. There is no defined requirement, no defined punishment, and no defined arbitration or judge in case of dispute. its totally arbitrary and depends on the individual choices.
You might as well argue holding a door open for a lady is a law.
Remind me again why we're discussing the correct terminology? And why does a lack of definition mean "totally arbitrary", is there nothing in between?
Yes, it is now a law to give up your seat in a bus to someone of the fairer sex. Have a nice day then.
Nope. Changes nothing. What you need to do is show that given a binary decision, both choices ARE immoral. That doesn't make any sense to me. This is an extreme example, but if I am told that I must kill my mother or the whole world dies (and I have reason to believe it), then the correct (good / right) moral decision is that I kill my mom. Like most people, I am not sure I am emotionally equipped to take the moral high ground, but the "good" moral choice is obvious.
Surely "not killing my mom" carries more moral weight with most people than J-walking? And yet in the above example it is wrong and killing is right.
I will use the Schindler example again. Following the law meant killing innocent people. Not following meant helping. In this case, following the law is CLEARLY the immoral choice.
The definitions of unethical and immoral strongly overlap. But my understanding is that ethics is applied by an outside force, where as morals are internal to the individual? Hopefully I am close?
In that case it may be unethical, but it is someone else's ethics, right?
Similarly, saying Goddammit is unethical. So?
I can admit that by common understanding (I was going to say "by definition" but it really doesn't in this case), breaking laws is in some way unethical; that doesn't mean I admit it is always immoral, right? My morality disagrees with the laws, so regardless of ethics, it is not immoral?
edited for typo
I may be wrong, but I think I speak for at least a number of contributors here when I say that we're getting more than a little fed up with you opening an argument and then just dismissing everyone's response to it with a condescending variation on "you don't understand", "come back when you’ve got something important to say". Its pathetic and it's getting tiresome. If you're not interested in discussing other people's perspectives on an issue then just stop posting.
Firstly, this thread is 19 pages long. No one has dismissed your arguments without consideration. They have been dismissed (where they have been dismissed at all) mostly with a perfectly reasonable degree of consideration. That you do not agree with the conclusion does not indicate a lack of consideration. As I have had said before, your incredulity is not an argument.
Secondly, my comment was mainly focussed on your condescending disinterest in other people's perspectives, not on their responses to you. You've given me a long quote claiming to represent your 'argument' (though it reads more like a series of assertions to me, but I may be missing the subtlety). What I would have expected in counter, is evidence of your having taken their positions seriously. Lead by example.
Since you troubled to ask me a direct question...
Quoting tim wood
No. I don't see how it could be.
A law is some proscription on behaviour that some past governing body thought, for any of a variety of reasons, would be in their best interests to legislate.
Morality is not one thing to all people. To me it is the way I feel about a certain class of behaviours. For Janus I think it's something more akin to a collective agreement (but not quite, because I keep paraphrasing it incorrectly). For others it might be that which they could at the same time wish were a universal maxim. Others it might simply be the instructions in a particular book. But because laws can be written for any one of a variety of reasons, I cannot see how obeying them en masse could constitute a moral duty for any of these groups. They simply have no reason to believe that 'the law' is a sufficiently unified concept to be something about which a moral decision can be made. It would be like asking if it were moral to imprison people called John. 'People called john' is simply not a unified enough group to make any moral decision about.
So it's not that people cannot grasp the concept of 'the law' (as opposed to a law), its that people disagree with you that any moral decision can be made in respect of so nebulous a collection of proscriptions.
Well it didn't take long to get back to the condescending attitude did it? I disagree with you about what 'the law' is, so I must "not know" what it is?
Quoting tim wood
Yes, your ultra-conservatism is duly noted. It doesn't constitute an argument. Tell me why you think these things are the case, not just that you think they are.
Quoting tim wood
No. 'Morality' is a word which means different things to different people. Are you really struggling to get your head around that concept?
Quoting tim wood
Law does not come out of morality, what on earth makes you think it does that. When a government propose a new law in their election manifesto, do you seriously think they propose it for its morality? Are you that naive?
Quoting tim wood
That is what we currently have. If I wish to do something my community disagrees with the ultimate sanction is still the man with the gun (or the most force of one sort or another). How do think we obtained our power to make laws? You think we think we gently persuaded the previous occupants to accept our rule?
Quoting tim wood
Possibly, after a discussion, yes. What's the alternative? I simply accept the first meaning anyone happens to lay out?
Quoting tim wood
And...back to the condescension. I do not agree with you. Do you even understand that concept? I do not agree that there is such a thing as 'the law'. There are laws, there is a specific law, but 'the law' is not a thing in that sense.
Quoting tim wood
We've already been through this. For me, morality is the collection of behaviours I feel are acceptable to me, those that make me feel good about myself in relation tommy role in the community (as opposed to the larger collection of behaviours which simply make me feel good in any sense). Some of those feelings will be responses programmed by my DNA, some will be instilled by my upbringing, some may even be random (we'd never know). Moral demands of others is an appeal to those feelings I presume (from experience) we share.
I'm commenting on your tone and attitude, exactly as you are doing with me here. Ad hominem is a fallacy of avoiding or detracting from the topic by referencing characteristics of one's interlocutor. I began this latest involvement talking about the negative attitude of your responses, so the matter is currently entirely on topic insofar as these threads have such a tendency to roam a little.
Quoting tim wood
Assertion is not an argument. You cannot simply claim things are the case and expect it to be accepted as an argument unless you are appealing to a common conception. It should be abundantly clear to you by now that most here do not agree with your assertions, so if you want to continue to take part in a discussion, it's no good just hysterically repeating them and telling everyone else they're stupid. You need to go back to some more fundamental axiom you think we might agree on and argue towards your position from there.
Quoting tim wood
Neither does facetious caricature constitute an argument. I specifically said that morality is not "whatever I feel good about". It is a specific subset of behaviours which make me feel good about myself with regards to my role in the community. That is not "whatever I feel good about". If you want people to take your arguments seriously, then you need to return the respect by doing so with others.
Quoting tim wood
Where did I say no law is moral? You claimed "law comes out of morality", the correct answer to that assertion is no, even if only one single law does not. If at least one law does not come out of morality, then it is false to say that 'law', as an entity, comes out of morality.
Quoting tim wood
Reason what? Reason what morality is? We've tried that. It doesn't appear to be the sort of topic amenable to reason, at least not here.
Quoting tim wood
This is what a real ad hominem looks like...if you needed an example to help you use the term correctly next time. Instead of providing counter-arguments, you just label my position stupid, ignorant and infantile.
Quoting tim wood
Let's see...
Quoting tim wood
Not an argument, a question, and one I've already answered. I know/decide based on what behaviours make me feel good about myself with regards to my role in my community.
Quoting tim wood
An assertion, not an argument.
Quoting tim wood
As above, another assertion.
Quoting tim wood
No one said anything about nullified. Ignored and nullified are not the same thing. That aside, this is just another assertion, and a rather odd one at that. Is a law not 'really' a law if it can be ignored? How so? A law is a rule, usually made by government, to detail what behaviour is proscribed and, often, what the punishment for transgression will be. I can't see how something like that fails to meet the criterion when someone disobeys it, or encourages others to. It is a statement of intent by the government, and remains so as long as it is in force.
Quoting tim wood
Opinion, not argument. This only works on the presumption that the law reflects the social contract and you've yet to provide a mechanism which forces it to do so. As it stands a government can pass any behavioural restriction into law so long as it is agreed upon by our elected representatives. I don't see any mechanism in there requiring all laws to mirror, or, honour the social contract, nor for them to uphold, relate to, or even consider what is moral. If there is no mechanism for laws to be forced to do this, then 'the law', which is just a collection of such individual laws, cannot possibly have acquired these properties. From whence did it aquire them?
Quoting tim wood
Not all behaviours require moral merit to engage in, surely. It's not a question of whether the behaviour is meritous, it's a question of whether the government's decision to restrict it (in the manner they have chosen) is justified.
So, two questions and three assertions by my count. Where exactly is your actual argument? Let me give you a guide, it should look something like...
Premise - "here are some principles I think we all agree on, yes?"
Reasoning -"if you follow these principles to their logical conclusion they lead to this behaviour"
Conclusion - "anyone who holds the principles we started with (and follows my reasoning) would be advised to behave thus"
So far you've provided us with a few ideas for the premise and then just got hysterical when we didn't agree with them.
Is it? To what alternative weakness do you suppose most lesser mortals succumb? Losing the basic sense of their meaning in the face of dissent? Are you suggesting that most people no longer know quite what they mean when a large number of people disagree with them?
And this is a weakness? To be confronted by a large number of people all arguing against your position but to maintain it nonetheless, is a strength for you is it? Surely that depends entirely on the quality of the position. In which case you're saying little more than "I agree with you". If were to doggedly insist that the earth were flat in the face of the entire scientific community dissenting, would that be admirable?
Yes! Indeed, to the fullest.
Actually it is a power, but yes.
Absolutely. There is no measure by which I can judge your subjectivity. It is yours. But I, as "I", decide what is deserving of respect, or not. Please challenge me.
They succumb to the weakness of stupidity, qua. gullible. I think @Tim wood is making a great point, in a most ironic manner. Call it a paradoxical statement.
What is the criterion which justifies a unified concept???
...would have been a much quicker way to have this conversation.
I've said as much a few times previously. He's still not getting the message, it seems.
He's got some nerve to say that, and very little self-awareness. I recall mention of the words "disgusting" and "troll" from him not too far back into this discussion.
Quoting Isaac
He does this so often that it's to be expected. It's like he just can't help himself.
And yes, you're right about the constant straw men, too. What's worse, not only does he have these bad habits, he has an air of superiority about him, as though he actually believes that he's more intelligent, more virtuous, and more skilled at debate.
Wow. @Merkwurdichliebe's ramblings actually sound like something...anything...
You've done a better job than me of squeezing so drop of meaning out of them.
I had to go and have a lie down after reading them.
Im impressed! Few could make such a succinct decision.
I'd say you have it exactly backwards here.
Quoting tim wood
But now you say this:
Quoting tim wood
That seems to be saying that laws are in prinicple moral because they are an expression of a social contract which is the view of a community as to what should or should not be done; which is exactly what you say about morality: "Morality is the community's view of what should/ should not be done."
You seem to be contradicting yourself.
Even you conclusion entails what you say I am "stumbling over': if breaking the law is in principle immoral then law must be based in principle on what is moral.
But nonetheless when it comes to actual laws that may or may not be based on moral considerations; it simply doesn't follow that breaking the law is necessarily immoral. To the contrary it follows that taking illegal drugs is not necessarily immoral. It must therefore depend on circumstance.
As Tim considers it beneath him, and you seem to understand his point...Can you explain to me why Schindler breaking the law to help people is immoral?
So you agree there can be situations where EVERY option open to the individual is immoral? What is the point of morals if they do not inform us as to how we should act?
Quoting Janus
My formal philosophy training is limited at best. Ernestm you might be making fun of me based on Janus' response? If not, then this is more for Janus.
Can either of you point me in the direction of something that would explain this? Dictionary definitions are largely identical. A quick google search suggested my understanding was correct, but as you philosophy people just throw those words around, I should be sure to understand them.
Quoting tim wood
I don't agree that laws are necessarily based on "the expression of what the community thinks ought be done or not done, morality..", but reading charitably I acknowledge that laws are that in principle. This means you are asserting that laws are in principle moral, but you seem to be saying I stumble insofar as I think that. If thinking that is in accordance with what you are claiming, then your saying I stumble over it is to contradict yourself.
Quoting Isaac
Any reason you missed this bit out? It seems like most of what you've put under 'reasoning' (which should be only logical relations) belongs here. Let me give you a guide seeing as you seem to be struggling with the definitions.
A premise is a fact about the state of affairs that exists which you hope is agreed upon by your interlocutor. If its not agreed on, there's no point in presenting your reasoning, because it reasons from a state of affairs your opponent does not agree exists. They take the form something like "x is...", or "it is the case that x..."
Reasoning is the application of some rule of thought to those states of affair. We simply presume we all agree with the rules of thought - logic, inference, perhaps abduction too. It generally takes the form "if x...and y... (both of which our premises have stated are states of affairs) then z..." where the connection should be via some logical inference.
The conclusion is then simply "therefore z".
You've listed a load of premises ("x is..." type statements),within your reasoning and I suspect this to be the nature of our disagreement.
Quoting tim wood
I do not agree with this premise. You'll need to provide a mechanism for how this is the case. Law is a collection of proscriptions on behaviour. Those proscriptions can be legislated, or de-legislated by a government for whatever reason it sees fit. What mechanism ensures they do so to reflect the social contract? Or, if not a mechanism in individual laws, then what mechanisms ensures that when these laws are gathered into a corpus, they obtain this quality (reflecting the social contract) which was not necessarily present in each individual component?
Quoting tim wood
As discussed at great length, I do not agree with this premise either. The arguments around this are long, but to simplify, communities could (and do) exist whose view of what should/should not be done can include things like murder of witches, owning of slaves, raping of war widows... All of which are clearly immoral.
Quoting tim wood
Agreed. We can continue to reason from this premise because we both agree with it.
Quoting tim wood
Again, we agree here, so reasoning developed from this premise would be worth pursuing.
Quoting tim wood
As with your first assertion about law, you have not provided the mechanism by which this is ensured, and there are countless examples to the contrary. Tell me, in what way do you see the various laws of Apartheid in South Africa to have been about the "benefit and protection of the community"?
Quoting tim wood
Again we disagree for the reasons given to your assertion that morality is "the community's view of what should/ should not be done". It is possible for the community to hold immoral behaviour to be accepted practice and it may, in theory, be necessary to harm that community for a greater good.
It may be that it is simply impossible for you to argue in favour of your position from premises we agree on, but if so, then you'd have to accept that your position is a rather dogmatic one, by the standards of normal ethical discourse, as it contains a number of quite 'low level' premises (by which I mean premises far down the scale of generalisation).
There are, however, two premises there which we agree on, and that's a start. What I'd be interested to read is if you think you can support your more specific premises (about what 'law' is) to by reason.
Logical consequence: what Nelson Mandela did, for example, was immoral.
Your conclusion: breaking the law is immoral.
Fact: Nelson Mandela broke the law.
Conclusion: Therefore, Nelson Mandela's breaking of the law was immoral.
You do not seem to accept this logical consequence, given your earlier outburst. If so, you are inconsistent, which means that your stance is self-refuting.
You can't have your cake and eat it.
And calling someone disgusting for bringing up counterexamples to your bad logic, as you did earlier, is not a valid or reputable response.
Therefore, what Schindler did was immoral.
But what Schindler did [i]wasn't[/I] immoral.
Therefore, we should reject Tim's argument.
Refuted by a reduction to the absurd. We can all move on now. Show's over. Nothing to see here.
Yes, that's a big problem: the counterexamples. It's a problem that can't just be swept under the rug or rambled away.
Quoting Isaac
Yes, that sums up his position more generally. He tends towards dogmatism.
Alcohol kills tens of thousands of people every year. There are no established instances of cannabis causing death. Not that cannabis is without harm - it isn't - but compared to alcohol, the differences are striking.
So then you think that the laws he broke were justified, and his actions were condemnable. Because that's what it means to say that his breaking of the law was immoral, and your own silly semantics has no bearing on this. It only has bearing inside your own little semantic world which you've constructed around yourself. Notice that no one else is using phrases like "law as law" because they reject your semantics, and the oddball reasoning behind it. You mistakenly think that we do not understand what you're saying, but in fact we just reject it, and with good reason.
Quoting tim wood
This means absolutely nothing.
Quoting tim wood
Don't be daft and try to stay on point. But yes, the one thing you almost got right in the above quoted response is that there's nothing immoral, [i]in itself[/I], about taking illegal drugs. That's something which would require further examination on a case by case basis, and the outcome could go either way. No one agrees with your dogma that breaking the law is necessarily immoral.
What you were responding to was a counterexample against your failed attempt to justify your unpopular black-and-white approach to the morality of breaking the law. You're the one who made it about that, so don't think that you can just suddenly swing back to the more specific topic of the morality of taking illegal drugs at the drop of a hat, whilst taking my criticism out of context and twisting my words.
So explain to me how 2+2=4 without invoking Peano's axioms. How 2+2 just is 4 without any premises at all that we must first agree on. I'm beginning to see how you consistently seem to arrive at the idea that you're just right, without having to actually support your assertions. You don't seem to understand epistemology at all.
Quoting tim wood
Yes. That's the point. There's no 'what' the law is. You can't just say it is something and expect everyone else to agree. It's maddening, this attitude of yours that you just have to say what you think a thing is, and it's just to be taken for granted that you're right. If you want to establish what the law is, you have to explain how it is. That's what is missing. The mechanism by which the law is what you claim it is.
Quoting tim wood
On the basis of what historical evidence are you basing this theory. You seem to frequently repeat this notion that laws are created by the community for their own good. You have not provided any evidence, nor any mechanism by which this happens.
Quoting tim wood
So what? If the community are not behaving morally, why should I give a toss what they intended their laws to cover?
Quoting tim wood
I agree. At the moment it is a claim without support. It's purpose here is not to convince you of it, it is to explain the difference between premises and rational argument. What you've expressed is a premise with which others do not agree.
Quoting tim wood
The community did not enact and enforce those laws. Nor did they do so in America during the era of slavery. Your willingness to let your right-wing drum-beating, write whole sectors of the community out of history is borderline racist. A minority of white landowners enacted and enforced those laws. They are not, nor ever were the community. The community included blacks, women, children and other immigrants all of whom have been denied any say whatsoever in the laws governing them at various points in history.
Quoting tim wood
I do. Are you suggesting I absolve my duty to someone else? How would I decide to whom to absolve it?
I think that he is either incapable of conceiving, or, what I find more plausible, maintaining a wilful ignorance, with regard to potential counterexamples to this kind of simplistic thinking that he comes out with, as though it is set in stone. If one does not have the required critical thinking skills or the right attitude for philosophy, then perhaps one should find another hobby.
Quoting Isaac
He either doesn't understand why you'd object in this manner, or he simply doesn't care to understand. (I think that it's the latter). He only cares about his dogma, and [i]'community!'[/I] is clearly a big part of that.
Quoting Isaac
Very good point. Well said.
Nope, just that it is not AUTOMATICALLY (inherently, definitionally, absolutely) immoral to break a law. It is no more ALWAYS MORAL than it is ALWAYS IMMORAL - this isn't that weird of an idea is it?
Each instance of drug use needs to be judged based on the consequences of said drug use (this is the one bit where I may have slightly different view from S, I think we are still wholly responsible for our actions since we chose to alter our mental state).
I am not trying to argue Consequentialism over Virtue ethics (well maybe a little), just that blanket moral statements like "it is always immoral to do 'X'" are just emotional sentiments that don't consider the actual meaning of words.
I don't understand what he's saying about immorality and law, but I somwhat understand what his point is from a philosophical perspective.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Because whenever ethical divergence occurs between two or more people, the ethical becomes relativistic.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Yes, any situation where the ethical becomes relativistic, we can find that every option open to the individual becomes immoral (especially when an ethical perspective is considered from its necessary antithesis). Schindler was absolutely immoral in relation to the Nazi ethic.
So be it. . .then the point of morals is simply to instill the individual with a personal conviction over his personal responsibility for himself as the decisive moral agent. Furthermore, even if the moral agent is capable of perfectly fulfilling his moral obligations, he can never determine whether or not his morality stands on absolute ground.
Read the next sentence, genius.
It is for someone who thinks like a child.
Yes, but as I said in a previous conversation with you; there is no evidence that the whole, or even most of, the community approved of those things. Certainly the witches, slaves and war widows and those who might have cared about them, would not have approved, to say the very least.
It is never that murder, slavery and rape and other serious acts are generally morally approved of as such, but when they are approved it is only when done to the "other", and it is by casting some group asother that power elites gain the moral approbation of at least some of the (mostly likely more unthinking) community.
No community would ever approve of murder, slavery or rape being done to any member of what they considered to be "their community". And that was the point about the universality of agreement about "life and death" moral acts that I was making in the earlier discussion.
Quoting tim wood
If laws are only in principle reflective of the will of the community then breaking them is only in principle immoral. But actual laws may not reflect the will of the community; which would mean that breaking them would not be immoral on that account at least. So, as to "doing" illegal drugs, that would only be immoral if the law against the drug reflected the general will of the community. That may be the case with some drugs, but certainly not with drugs such as Cannabis and Psilocybin.
Then there is the further question of whether the will of the community is always and everywhere an educated will, or whether it is a will that is the result of brainwashing of the mob by some power elite. Or again, is the will of the community, even if it is an educated will, an uncoerced will? I don't agree that breaking the law necessarily harms the community; what does or does not harm the community may or may not be sanctioned by law.
I do agree in that in principle acts which intentionally or negligently harm individuals, and hence the community, are, by definition, immoral. The question is; how far does your conception of and feeling for, community extend? I say there are no definite answers in moral philosophy, except for the most serious "life and death" acts such as murder, rape, torture and so on, which are always and everywhere morally wrong..
One key component of your argument is that one "benefits" from being in a community.
Quoting tim wood
If the black population of South Africa at the time of Apartheid were part of "the community" then perhaps you could explain how they benefitted from that membership (as opposed to forming their own community).
If they were not part of "the community" then why were they morally obliged to accept the laws of some other community, by your argument?
Quoting tim wood
Again, you categorically cannot have this apply both ways to Apartheid. Either...
1. Blacks were a part of "the community", in which case your statement above is contradicted because the laws of apartheid were not about their benefit and protection. Or...
2. Blacks were not part of "the community", in which case your arguments do not apply to them. But this would mean that the moral obligation is to the laws you feel represent you, not the ones of the country you happen to live in.
The argument you most recently presented to me linked "the community's" ideas of what should/should not be done, to the making of laws by that "community", for the benefit and protection of that "community" and concluded that because of this link, breaking them must necessarily constitute a harm to "the community". This argument requires that the law-breaker is a part of (benefitting from) the community which made the law. Otherwise you're claiming that it is intrinsically a moral wrong for one independent party to infringe on the wishes of another without any regard for what those wishes are. It would be immoral of me to prevent a murder because I have gone against the wishes of the murderer.
Quoting tim wood
As @S has already pointed out to earlier. You made the issue one of the absolute immorality of breaking the law. You can't no swing it back to the specifics because the argument isn't going your way.
I'm happy to go along with this definition but I'm not sure what it gains in terms universality. The imperative "do not murder a member of your community" might well be universal, but it is circular if you define "your community" only as {those you would not murder}. The imperative becomes "do not murder those you would not murder", which is exactly moral relativism.
In order for the imperative "do not murder a member of your own community" to mean anything non-relativistic, the variable {member of your own community} needs to be defined non-relativistically, otherwise the imperative becomes "murder whomever you like"
So how - given our history, do you go about defining {member of your community} in a non-relativistic way?
I don't deny that there is no hard and fast definition of community (or anything else!). But I would suggest that most people know just who would count as a member of their community, and that for many if not most within a given community there would be agreement. I'd say the ideal is to consider all humans and animals as members of your community, and abjure from murdering (wantonly killing) altogether.
The interesting thing about killing (as distinct from murder) is that it must be justifiable in some instances (i.e. killing for food or self-preservation) whereas torture or rape could never be justified in any instance.
But this doesn't cover places like Nazi Germany. Here, "the Jews" were turned into "the other" and thus it was considered morally OK to murder them (or hand them in to be murdered). You can see "Hitler's Willing Executioners" for evidence of this.
I don't see how you could describe the events of 1930s/40s Germany as the community just 'knowing' that Jews were no longer members. It seems quite clear from the history that people wanted to kill (or at least steal from and expel) Jews first, and second they went about "othering" them to justify their actions. All of which would indicate a relativist approach to who is and isn't a member of one's community.
In order for the imperative "do not murder/torture/rape a member of your community" to be universal, the rules for {member of your community} must also be universal, otherwise the imperitive becomes " do not murder whomever you subjectively feel it is not OK to murder", which is relativist, not universal.
So, what I'm struggling to see in your argument is a universally applied rule for who constitutes a member of one's community which is not itself relativist. Some rule which derives from universal facts about the world, not relative feeling.
... Or... Are you saying that people know instinctively who is a member of their community, such that this category is (near)-universalised by biology, and people like those who would hand over Jews to be killed were acting immorally and knew perfectly well they were. Afterall, people do do immoral things so we can't exclusively use behaviour to judge what people consider moral. And people lie about their feelings, so we can't use their reports of what they consider moral.
Is that closer to what you mean?
Nothing happens to the Law, its integrity is still intact. The person who does something illegal still has to deal with the consequences of breaking the law, a fine, jail, whatever. The morality of the act also maintains its integrity. This is because the two things are separate, they are not the same thing.
If people deem it moral, or at least not immoral,
to break a law, then I’d say that undermines the law. It’s surely possible to morally undermine a law by appealing to a higher set of values, but it doesn’t seem to me you could do that with drugs, given their harms.
Quoting Isaac
The more or less hostile attitude toward the Jews was always a matter of community sentiment, not the arbitrary decision of lone individuals (which would not be tolerated by the community if their attitude was favorable towards Jews) so, no, the moral situation was not subjective in the way that you are trying to depict it.
Having said that I won't deny that community moral sentiment can be manipulated by power elites.
Breaking law is usually related to civil or otherwise administrative conditions, and the law remains unaffected. The consequence of breaking civil law is predicated on the stipulations legislated into it, varies accordingly and is always empirical.
Disrespecting law, on the other hand, is usually related to the deontological moral doctrine, and if such should be the case, the law herein being moral law immediately becomes void. The consequence of disrespecting any moral law whatsoever is being immoral, has no variance and is always a priori.
Law in itself does indeed impose a duty under both moral and civil doctrines.
Do you say that "duty" is only in principle, or do you say that a law should never be broken?
If one accepts the will as a moral determinant, than duty may serve as the notion that justifies those determinations. It is useless to authorize the will to formulate our moral laws if we don’t have the means integrated within us to regard those laws as such. But I don’t think duty is a principle, per se, but perhaps closer to a feeling, or perhaps an innate predisposition, because there are moral doctrines that do not rely on deontological predicates.
Nevertheless, if one does abide by the deontological moral doctrine, which presupposes his ability to formulate his own choice of moral law, than he is morally obligated to conform his judgements to them, not AS duty requires it, but BECAUSE duty requires it. Otherwise, he has no warrant for deeming himself morally worthy. Very much a closed, self-contained, moral system.
This obligation does not hold in kind for civil law because we do not formulate civil law with respect to our a priori moral attitude, but with regard to empirical community order. Besides, I can break a civil law without necessarily disrespecting it and without considering myself immoral, whereas my non-conformity to a moral law is automatically disrespectful and carries explicit immorality with it.
As I see it, anyway.
Yes and it is a duty in principle. There is no duty in actuality where no no duty in principle is adhered to, except where a duty is enforced. Morals are all about principles to be freely followed, not enforced, otherwise they would be laws.
Quoting tim wood
You first sentence is merely a tautology. Why would I not distinguish between what a law in general is, i.e. an enforced prescriptive or proscriptive principle, and what a law says, i.e. the particular principle that is to be enforced?
I can't see why that could not be paraphrased as " than duty may serve as the principle that justifies those determinations."
I do agree that duty can also be a feeling; the sense of duty. But I would say the sense of duty, if it is held subsequent to being examined, just is the acceptance of the principle of duty. An unexamined sense of duty may just be an introjected principle.
I have not been able to parse your distinction between deontological moral obligation being not "as duty requires it, but because duty requires it".
Principles are usually grounds or necessary conditions for law, or at least some form of rule. If duty is considered a principle, than it follows laws or rules should be derivable from it. I don’t think duty gives rules.
Duty is called a notion because there is no examination needed for it. I can never prove even to myself I do this or that because it is my duty, but I certainly can use the concept of duty to represent my own best interests in respecting the very moral laws I make for myself.
*As* duty requires implies duty is contingent on circumstance; *because* duty requires implies duty is antecedent to circumstance.
"As duty requires" doesn't imply that the fact of duty per se is contingent on circumstance, but that the particular duties I have will vary in different circumstances. I think that the fact that duty is antecedent is implied in both expressions.
No, not by necessity. If you want to argue that respect for the law 'as law' is prior to the creation of laws individually, then you'd have to again provide a mechanism by which that is ensured. As it stands, were I an influential politician, I could propose a law for whatever reason I like and if Parliament accepts it (for whatever reason they like), it becomes law. This is, on the face of it, no different for the very first law. So if you're arguing that respect for the law necessarily precedes the making of a law, you'd have to explain how that is enforced.
Quoting tim wood
Not quite, no.
You just need to add "to him" at the end. Relativistically, we cannot talk about what is moral or immoral without context. You can presume that all my statements of morality are relative to me (so I don't see the need to add "to me" at the end of each one), but when making a moral claim with which you don't agree (ie presenting the opponent's position), it's important to adhere to this principle otherwise you are misrepresenting your opponent, and it's pointless arguing with you if you're arguing against a misrepresentation.
Not sure what you are getting at here. The distinction and its consequences seem obvious to me.
A law abiding person follows the law. A moral person, their moral standards. Sometimes these come into conflict, and a person must decide which has a higher priority to them. Where lies the mystery?
I have a problem with the racist implications of this. Not that I suppose for a moment that you intended them, let me make that abundantly clear first. The trouble is I can only see three ways of understanding what you're saying here (the first of which troubles me)
In a 1930s German Town, there are 1000 people, 950 ethnic Germans, 50 Jews. Among the 950 ethic Germans, there will be at least one who considers the Jews to be part of his comminity so either...
1. He is objectively wrong, the Jews are not part of his community. This is the one that worries me, for reasons that are hopefully obvious.
2. He is objectively right. The Jews are a member of his community. But this leads to the conclusion that the remaining members of the community (who, in this story colluded with the gestapo to have the Jews executed, something we know for a fact happened) were all lying when they say what they are doing is morally correct.
3. He is objectively neither right, nor wrong, because the question of who is and is not a member of your community is a subjective one.
You've already dismissed 3. If you accept 2 we have to also accept that vast quantities of people both act immoraly, and lie about their moral feelings when asked (which undermines the evidence base for universality). But that leaves us only with 1, which is the racist option.
Do you see the problem?
Quoting Janus
In a dialogue where the context has to do with the consideration of duty as a notion or as a principle, these two statements don’t say the same thing. If you wish to say a deontological moral agent operates under the principle of subjecting himself to duty, I wouldn’t argue against it. That, however, doesn’t say anything to qualify duty itself as a principle; there just isn’t any good reason why it should be considered a principle, a quite powerful conception, if notion, a not-so-powerful conception, is entirely sufficient.
———————————
Quoting Janus
That reflects the point, actually, and FAPP says exactly the same as *as duty requires*. There are no particular duties from a moral perspective. There is only one sense of duty, and adherence to it is volunteered by the moral doctrine to which it belongs. The particular volitions you have will vary in different circumstances, solely dependent on the judgement you make to authorize what those volitions ought to be. This also explains why duty in and of itself cannot be a principle, if you think of duty as variable, because variable principles stand on good ground for contradicting themselves.
Duty is like truth. Any particular truth is just an example of truth; any particular duty is just an example of duty. Reductionism from the particulars in each gives the ideal of each. The ideal duty is the moral duty, and is itself irreducible.
Yet another poorly formed question.
Its not missing, I didnt include it because I do not acknowledge it. Its just the convoluted way you are thinking about it. You are making it more complicated than it is, and only end up making a conflation that is making it confusing for people to discuss the matter with you.
But we've been through all this and you're just not adapting your argument, or acknowledging counter arguments. I've just spent time explaining why it is not the case that...
Quoting tim wood
...because you've not linked the law as law to anything necessarily moral. We've established that law is not necessarily to the benefit of the community, it is not necessarily in their interests, and it is not constructed with the consent of the community.
Also, you've described 'moral' as "the community's view of what should/ should not be done". Should be done, singular. So...
Quoting tim wood
...doesn't seem to make sense to me. If moral is the thing which should be done, it can't be two opposing things. If it were, how would you choose between them morally. Morality is simply the community's view of what should be done, it does not then tell you which of it's two 'shoulds' one should choose.
Lets just say the community has a view that x should be done, and y should not be done. You find yourself needing to do y in order to achieve x. On what basis do you choose? I can only see three alternatives...
1. You choose based on your own internal feelings. Fine, but you've become a moral relativist, so why not just start out that way?
2. You choose by referring to some other moral law which tells you what to do (say "y is always worse than x so never get x via y"). But now this needs to be always true, otherwise this does not function as a means to enable the choice to be made morally (you'd still have to have a law to tell you when it applies and when it does not, else we're back to square one). But if its always the case, then x is not a moral law, because there are circumstances where it is not the thing which "should be done". The moral law is "x except when y", which is not how laws are written.
3. You choose without morals. Obviously this renders the whole moral decision pointless.
I don't believe it does. I think the obligation exists already as a desire. Quoting tim wood
Not seeing the jump there. That the relativist refers only to his own feelings does not mean he denies the other. He has feelings about the other.
Quoting tim wood
It refers to the means by which law becomes, or earns its status as something that must be respected. If said that the Bible must be respected you would ask me why, what is it about the Bible which entitles it to membership of the set {things we must respect}?
That's nice, but it's a poorly formed question nevertheless.
Correct, I do not hold that there is overlap. They are separate, with different basis and priority.
Well if we use Rosa Parks as a nice clear example (in case you are not American, she refused to sit in the back of the bus despite the law saying she had to), then the result is that she went to jail. Police and judges simply enforce the laws. They do not create them and certainly do not question the morality of the laws (well they are not supposed to anyway). They just carry them out. The act of civil disobedience is intended to reach a wider audience who may recognize their action of breaking the law as justified, and therefor take efforts to change the laws so future generations are not subject to immoral laws.
Police and judges have the job of enforcing the law, so arresting Rosa Parks would not be immediately immoral. However, the excessive use of attack dogs and fire hoses to enforce the law during the Civil Rights movement could more easily be seen as immoral. To go farther, I would view torturing and killing people during the holocaust, as obviously immoral despite having the law on their side.
Also if it helps, and this is probably sacrilege in philosophy, I view morality as truly only mattering at the extremes. Whether someone smokes some marijuana seems meaningless in any direction (no more immoral than say driving a car, using plastic, or voting for Trump, hehe). A meth addict who stabs people as part of supporting their habit, seems to have a moral shortcoming that is a good deal more significant.
I'm not confusing the two. I'm claiming that things like 'law' as law do not exist. Law, as a concept is not coherent. It is 'some laws'. 'Law' is the collection of these individual laws. Not only is this the definition given in my dictionary, but using the well-agreed Occam's razor, if you wanted to argue that 'law' was something other than the sum of its parts, it is your burden to show what that something is and how it is acquired as a property. This is something you've not yet done. Perhaps this should be cleared up first, perhaps you could give us a positive definition of 'the law' (by which I mean what it is, not what it isn't).
Quoting tim wood
So, importantly, how are you judging this, and why? Anyone could make a claim to be oppressed and excluded. How would you judge whose claim was accepted?
Quoting tim wood
Enough for what?
No, I haven't dismissed 3 because all along I have argued that the closest we come to objectivity is inter-subjectivity, and that morality is inter-subjective. So someone or some group will be members of the community to the degree that the community considers them to be.
Of course I am not going to dispute that this ultimately comes down to individual attitudes, but most individual's attitudes are determined by the general feelings and attitudes of whatever communities they identify themselves with or unreflectively belong to.
The more thoughtful an individual is the more they will be able to dissent from the group consensus. Someone like that will most likely expand their sense of community, not shrink it. Sociopathic individuals, those who lack empathy, will most likely go the other way and shrink their sense of community, perhaps right down to just themselves. So, their moral dissent will be in the negative direction; they will become less moral, rather than becoming, as the more thoughtful do, more moral (in the sense of expanding their sense of community).
So its (civil rights movement) morality outweighs its immorality? That is how I make every moral decision. I call the side that outweighs as the correct moral choice. Despite our MASSIVE disagreement on semantics, I am not sure our views on morality are that opposed.
It seems to me that "law as law" is law in general or law in principle, as opposed to 'law as a law' which is law in particular.
We should respect law as law, but it doesn't follow that we must respect any particular law.
Your position on this just seems confused to me.
What distinction is that?
Quoting tim wood
Still not seeing the link you're making. I am always subject to the law of my country. OK. Then you leap to me being under a moral obligation to it without demonstrating that link. What is it about 'the law' which is moral? By which I'm expecting an answer which appeals to some common moral objective, such as harm reduction or the persuit of some agreed virtue. What of these does 'the law' necessarily pursue, simply by being 'the law'?
Quoting tim wood
Yes, and why is revolution immoral?
Quoting tim wood
If we're just going to go back to these stupid assertions without argument then there's no point in continuing. I thought you might have adapted your discursive style, but as soon as we get close to the heart of the matter you just revert to the same old hysterical bullshit.
Tell me again then, exactly how breaking the law leads to a "likelihood of real harm to you and real harm to your community" when we've just spent pages demonstrating how this is not necessarily the case.
You didn't only claim that morality was inter-subjective. You additionally claimed that some morals were "near universal", and it is that issue that I disputed. Your moral "do not murder/torture/rape a member of your community" in order to be near universal needs to have the variable {member of your community} defined near-universally, otherwise the entire instruction is meaningless universally.
If {member of your community} becomes, whomever you think is a member, then the instruction contains the variable 'whomever you think', which is subjective.
In order for this to be "near universal", there would have to be near universal agreement on who constituted a {member of your community}.
If you are claiming that indeed there is near universal agreement, and this constitutes a moral, then you are giving moral weight to xenophobia, which is, without doubt, the most prevelent form of community circumscribing, and so the only method which has even a thin claim to be "near universal".
If, on the other hand, you accept the progressive's definition of {member of your community}, then you'd have to admit that this is far from "near universal".
If the variable {member of your community} is not universal, then the entire instruction "do not murder/torture/rape a member of your community" cannot have any universal applicability. It could apply to anything from no-one, to everyone, depending entirely on the person holding it.
"depending entirely on the person holding it" is basically the definition of relativism, which you fervently denied.
Yes, but no one has provided either a definition of what law in general, or law in principle, actually is. Nor, most importantly, how it is more than the sum of its parts.
If a country's laws (individual statutes) consisted of nothing but instructions to oppress some minority group, how, when they are collected together into 'the law' do they become something we must respect? I'm not seeing the moral.
By pointing out your failings. Clearly that angers you.
Everyone calls it that, and no one agrees with Tim's semantics. What's the point of a semantics of one?
I've considered your thoughtful objection, but unfortunately for you, I've decided to continue to point out your failings, regardless of how many times you tell me to "fuck off" or call me "mere-S". :grin:
Your failings span multiple topics. In this discussion, your failings relate to the ethics of taking illegal drugs. And the specific failing I pointed out was your failure to ask a sensible question. That failure is a reoccurring failure, in spite of my pointing it out earlier. The solution would be to put more thought into a question before asking it.
Hope that helps! :grin: :up:
Quoting tim wood
Was there [i]not even a hint[/I] in your mind that you were asking a stupid question, given its vague and loaded nature?
So every question you can't or don't want to answer is stupid, vague and loaded, huh? :chin:
How ironic. That is itself a loaded question. You realise that, right? Can you not see what's vague or loaded about the question he asked? It's the "what happens to the law" part. That's stupidly broad, and there's an implicit assumption that "something" happens, though he doesn't bother to say what. Whatever he was trying to ask, he could have put more thought into how he went about asking it.
Perhaps it’s enough to say, if it had been clear, we’d have agreed on some of it, disagreed on some of it.
It's ironic in the same way that it would be ironic if I argued that circular reasoning is great because great reasoning is circular.
You're committing the very fallacy you mention, which is kind of amusing. Thanks for amusing me.
Quoting S
There we go. :clap:
Tim, you do realize that his behavior is no different than that of a troll at this point?
Perfect. Or at least close enough.
Now all that’s needed is.......why should it be accepted that Quoting tim wood
So you're foolish enough to answer loaded questions? Why is that?
I'm entitled to plainly point out a poorly formed question, when I think that a poorly formed question has been asked, which is where this began. And if he's going to flame in response, then that makes him fair game. It's as simple as that. He chose to keep replying, and he chose the way in which he replied.
Yeah; but, you take joy and glee in the whole process, whatever that process entails for you. Anyway, hope you stocked up on your drugs to help you in whatever way they do if they do at all...
So what if I do? I do find it amusing when someone like Tim gets all hot under the collar just because they can't handle a bit of direct criticism. I find it amusing how quickly he resorts to emotional invective instead of a reasoned and controlled response. All of this is off topic, of course. That's the path that Tim, and now you, have taken us down. And your other comments are even more off topic. Pig-chimps, and my drug habit? My cat's fine, by the way. How's the weather where you are?
Haha, I'm not that stupid. You don't care about the destination of this thread, just endless rationalizations of your own drug habit, with tim serving as your punching bag.
Abort, abort, disengage!
In the general sense law is the codification of principles or rules to be followed under threat of punishment for failure to follow them. Law as a general principle would be something like "Do what I say or be punished".
It's a sunny day here in Westlake Village, California, as usual. How about you? And, I'm glad your cat is fine.
I maintain that some morals, those to do with "life and death" matters such as murder, rape, torture are near universally accepted across cultures as applying at least to those who are communally considered to be members of the community. This really is a matter of survival because any culture which did not follow that way would not last long, obviously; there would be no solidarity.
And everyone else who has made similar points are all rationalising their own drug habits, too? Lol.
I believe it was you who started the fuck off-ing. You brought us here. So you should be asking yourself those questions. What do you think you could have done to have prevented this? How about responding to criticism less emotionally?
Nope. You seemed less negative, hostile, and angsty back in the old PF if I remember you correctly. More motivated to learn than the above. What happened since then?
Ah, I see. It's only when I make those points that they're rationalisations. And I'm sure that you saying this has nothing to do with any personal issue you have with me.
Anyway, as you should know, the motivation behind a point is irrelevant. That would be an ad hominem.
More a concern than anything else. Not any grudge or anything like that.
Topic worthy issue. Go ahead and post something about that if you don't mind elaborating.
Are there any points left that haven't been dealt with? I think that most of us are in general agreement, with the most notable exception of Tim.
I think its been covered ya.
We could talk about the morality of doing drugs, since thats what this is actually about for Tim and other anyway...
For a while there, it was almost like the topic had morphed into something else. Something about fucking off, pig-chimps, my cat, and the weather. Weird. :lol:
It's all my fault, of course, having started it all by having the nerve to respond to a poorly formed question by calling it a poorly formed question. Slap my wrist!
Yes, pig-chimp content.
More of it! That's what I say. Do you concur?
Hmm, well, then you be the chimp and I'll be the pig.
I was being serious lol
Its clearly what this thread is really about. If it was actually about breaking the law there are many many other issues that could have been proffered but this one was chosen because Tim does not approve of drug use. The proper question if the law is really the issue would have simply been “is it immoral to break the law?”.
What Im suggesting is we ask and answer the question Tim and I think others are actually asking “is it immoral to do drugs?”.
How about it gentlemen?
I was looking for respect (for law qua law) as the condition which facilitates our “immediate compliance”.
What is this “other” you’re referring to?
Ok, lets do harm to self first. What qualifies significant harm? Does it matter if the person accepts the trade off of harm for whatever benefit they ate getting out of it?
I think its going to be hard to call it immoral in the case of harm to oneself only without being inconsistent with peoples freedom to have preferences
Also, would your answer change if we make a distinction between drug use and drug abuse?
The question is about doing drugs, not about what a bad actor choses to do to get drugs etc.
Most things can cause significant harm to self (and others) if they are being done in an excessive, reckless, and/or criminal manner. Why would you single out drugs?
I agree. That's where it begins. It begins with his disapproval. Although it doesn't surprise me in the least that Tim would come out with something like, "Breaking the law is bad". One could probably guess his stance on a whole range of issues by thinking of the most simplistic, unsophisticated, unoriginal, status quo thing to say.
Quoting DingoJones
That's already been done, hasn't it? Anyway, my shortest answer would be, "Depends".
I would define significant harm as damage that significantly impairs one's mental, emotional or physical ability to be a normally functional contributing member of the community.
Quoting DingoJones
Using drugs of a kind, or to an extent, that causes significant harm I would classify as "abuse".
Quoting DingoJones
I haven't "singled out drugs", you have by asking the specific question.
Nobody asked for a short answer, thankfully. Why did you opt to offer one?
I do not think i agree with “normally functioning” member. The “normal” part especially. Is there something immoral about not being normal?
Right, we are talking about drug use not drug abuse, so you mentioning harm is non-sequitor unless you think all drug use causes harm. Is that what you think? If it is, then Im going to ask you if thats consistent with other things people do. Football causes harm to self or others, is that immoral too?
Could we use the term “healthy”, or maybe “relatively healthy”. That seems the best descriptor to if I understand you correctly. (I think I do).
Quoting DingoJones
So, this is a silly statement given that I have already defined drug abuse as immoral, and have said that drug use just is drug abuse if it causes significant harm.
Ok, so is drug USE immoral?
A number of reasons. One reason is that I've already given the longer version, and I'm not over the moon at the prospect of repeating myself just because you appear to want to start up the merry-go-round again. Another reason would be that it is such a big and complicated issue that the wording of the question doesn't do it justice. I would hardly know where to begin. There are so many factors which would require careful consideration, and no details whatsoever of any particular case have been set. It is a very unstructured set up for a serious discussion about the issues surrounding illegal drugs.
I cant imagine why, I guess we agree.
I didnt realise you had already layed it out in this thread. Like with Janus, I imagine we agree anyway.
Why didnt the people who actually think its immoral answer?
I don't even know if they're all online right now. But people like Tim answered the question earlier, it's just that it's a rubbish answer that has been picked apart. That's why I asked whether there was anything that hadn't already been dealt with.
I must have jumped over that part. I get bored watching you try and explain the same shit over and over with little results so I confess I skipped pages here and there.
:lol:
Yes. Of course. How could I possibly know what is against the law unless I've researched the law? It's not generally written on signposts. And yes, of course I think through my actions to check morality. No I don't necessarily stop at a stop sign, in fact, when all the road signs were taken away in an experiment in the Netherlands road traffic accidents reduced, so I make a point of ignoring road signs and using my senses instead.
Quoting tim wood
If that's really how you see personal moral responsibility, then I think we're getting a very clear picture of why you have such authoritarian views. "Oh I can't be bothered to actually work out for myself what's right or wrong, somebody else tell me!"
Right, and yet you said that my position that there was no moral imperative to respect the law was "confused" and that...
Quoting Janus
So, given your definition of what 'law' is (which seems accurate enough to me) what moral is obliging us to 'respect' it?
Quoting Janus
I'm all too aware of the fact that you "maintain" it. Any actual counter-argument to the point I'm making, or are we just going back to sticking your fingers in your ears? I expect I'll be accused of 'sophistry' in a minute, seems the usual tactic to shrug off any counter-arguments people don't like around here.
Is anyone really surprised people like @S become a little 'blunt' in their responses. We go round and round with long, complicated counter-arguments and eventually end up either being ignored, accused of sophistry or told we "don't understand".
I was clearly talking about particular cases, which implies particular laws. I said "in some cases". There's no category error, and I'm not confused at all. I know exactly what I'm saying, and I don't think that it's difficult to understand. The problem is coming from you. What I said makes sense. Following the law necessarily consists in following particular laws. I was referring to an unspecified set of particular laws. I told you why I was talking about particular cases rather than talking about the law "abstractly and removed from particular cases": the reason being that that would make no sense. Any reasonable person who has given the topic careful consideration would respond to the question of the morality of breaking the law by asking [I]which laws[/I]. There's a world of difference between two seperate cases on either extreme of the moral scale which would otherwise be erroneously glossed over. There's no 'one answer fits all'. You're pretty much on your own with that approach, and with your problematic semantics.
Quoting tim wood
Absolute nonsense that you've pulled out of thin air. It does not reflect my position at all.
Quoting tim wood
No.
A couple pages ago you mentioned Kantian self-legislation. Given that self refers to the specifically human subjective condition and legislation refers to the creation of, or amendment to, laws, it raises the question.....what would any sense of “others” have to do with internally legislated moral law, and the respect rational agents in general possess for law in itself which promises their un-mediated compliance with them?
Either self-legislation, and the principle of absolute necessity from which sine qua non law itself with no empirical content whatsoever arises, is false, or, there can be no sense of “others” in reference to it.
Hmmm. To help you understand where they (we? well, at least me anyway) are coming from (I do not expect this to suddenly transform your view, just mentioning), is there ANY moral action you can think of, that I cannot come up with a hypothetical where that "moral" action suddenly becomes "immoral"? Sure breaking the law is somewhat immoral, so is donating to charity. Everything would be on a scale with NOTHING being perfectly moral, right?
To go to the second half of your statement, "because they have decided so"; isn't that how we ALL come up with our morality? Sure we may listen to some other person or deity, but in the end, each person decides what they think is right, right?
That is a great point. I think it will be very difficult to refute the way you’ve put it there. Well done sir.
It seems obvious to me that if you have no wish to live in a lawless society, you should respect the law as law; but it does not follow from that that any particular law should be respected. Lawless societies would not be expected to thrive or even to last for long, so if you wish to live in a society at all, it would seem to follow that the consistent and honest attitude would be to respect the law as law, which is really equivalent to wishing that there should be laws.
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
This is the claim that you are complaining that I haven't addressed. But I have: my counter-claim was that "some morals, those to do with "life and death" matters such as murder, rape, torture are near universally accepted across cultures as applying at least to those who are communally considered to be members of the community."
This is obviously a claim that those morals are subjectively, and hence inter-subjectively, near universally to be found. And you have provided no argument that I can see to refute that claim. Perhaps you could give an example of a society in which murder, etc, is or was widely approved of. I have virtually no doubt that you can't do that. Prove me wrong!
You make a lot of assumptions about how people will respond, and about what people ought to be surprised or not surprised about. I'm not surprised by @s bluntness and insulting, toxic style of "argumentation" because that is what I have come to expect from him, not because I think his behavior is at all justifiable. I haven't seen any sound or relevant arguments from either you or s to support the kind of arbitrary subjectivism of the individual, as opposed to the normative subjectivism of community in relation to morality; what has been presented mostly just consist in what I judge to be "red herrings", and category errors.
Well thank you. I always appreciate confirmation that what makes sense in my head, actually works :smile:
hahaha. fair enough. I think my compulsion to find common ground is acting up again :grimace:
A sign of wisdom. :up:
I think people generally just pre-reflectively accept the mores that their culture serves up to them. Once they become reflective, which is probably not all that common, then some of their mores, (less likely the really important ones dealing with matters of life and death) may be discarded or transformed. (They might come to believe that masturbation, or pre-marital or homosexual sex, for example are not immoral, where they formerly did believe those things were immoral).
Of course it is true that individuals in most communities are held morally responsible for their actions, which means that it is, morally speaking, deemed to be ultimately up to them; but it does not follow from that that people have any absolute autonomy when it comes to moral beliefs, or even as to whether their actions conform to their avowed beliefs.
What's the point of talking about "law"? No one here wants to live in a lawless society. Everyone here has the bare minimum of respect for law such that they're in favour of having laws. There's nothing controversial there to discuss.
And yes, you're right about why I wouldn't respect a particular law or set of laws.
But egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies have lasted for longer than any Western society by several hundred times. None of them had a hierarchical system of law.
Quoting Janus
Nazi Germany. We've been through this and you just ignored my argument. Hence my frustration.
Your position ends up either xenophobic or relativist.
You say that a near universal sentiment is - It is immoral to murder/rape/torture a member of your community.
But to avoid xenophobia (or outright racism) we have to have the term {member of your community} mean {whomever you feel is a member of your community}. The alternative is to say that who is and is not a member of any community is a matter of fact, not opinion, and I'm sure none of us want to go there.
So now, exchanging terms we have - It is immoral to murder/rape/torture someone you feel is a member of your community.
It must (again, by simple inverse of terms) be OK to murder/rape/torture someone outside of your community (otherwise we're talking about a different moral). So someone outside of your community is synonymous with someone it is OK to murder/rape/torture. A member of your community (by simple logical inverse) is synonymous with someone it is not OK to murder/rape/torture. I've not done anything deceptive or sophist-like here. These are the simple logical synonyms/antonyms of your sets.
So now, again by simple exchange of synonyms we have - It is immoral to murder/rape/torture someone you feel it is not OK to murder/rape/torture.
That is basically the definition of relativism.
So, Tim turns up, makes a boring, uncontroversial point, but makes it in ambiguous, problematic language, and then draws an obviously wrong conclusion from it that virtually no one else agrees with. That's my blunt and toxic assessment of the situation, anyway.
Nonsense; everything I have read on the subject suggests that tribal societies had laws and leaders.
I am not going to respond in detail to the rest of what you wrote because you keep committing the same mistake I have already corrected at least once of thinking that individuals are actually free to decide who is or is not a member of their community; such a decision is never free insofar as it always comes with a cost, and community moral sentiment is thus felt as a moral constraint on individuals who have any genuine sense of community. Those who don't have such a sense we may leave out of consideration.
That cultural sub-groups are considered to be more or less members of the community is a matter of community sentiment. Of course some may dissent, although this is less likely in tribal and traditional societies, but the dissent will be immoral from the point of view of the community. So I am saying that morality is relative, relative to communities, not to individuals, which is what I have arguing all along.
Where are you getting “moral” respect from? You just need to respect the law, or need for laws. The purpose is a functioning, healthy society. Morals don’t have to enter it at any point.
No. You have very clearly been arguing all along that morality (in respect of murder/rape/torture of members of your community) is near universal. I am countering that claim by saying that if the variable {member of your community} is not universal, then the whole moral is rendered not universal because it has no universal referent. It's not about what influences a person's moral sentiments, no one is denying that we are influenced by our community. What relativists are denying is that such influence leads to any meaningfully universal morals. I'm saying that your "it is immoral to murder/rape /torture a member of your community" is meaningless universally because 'member of your community' has no universal meaning in terms of dictating behaviour.
Otherwise what's the point of the specification. You might as well just say it is a universal moral not to do things you think are wrong (but what you think is wrong varies from person to person). That's exactly the same form as is immoral to murder/rape /torture a member of your community (but who constitutes a member varies from person to person).
You don't get to decide what morality is and is not relative to. That's out of your hands. You only have the power to dictate [i]your own[/I] morality.
Your words don't mean a thing. It's like if I were to say that citizenship of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland applies to people named David, Peter, and Sue, but not to those named Arthur, Christopher, and Mary. That's how silly you sound, in spite of the intellectual guise. No amount of "argumentation" from you can validate what you're saying.
1.)......is more self-regulation than self-legislation, because your example shows merely inclination to obey extant legalities in the public domain, rather than inherent duty to treat law itself as a governing principle in the private domain. Morality is grounded in the major difference between the law of someone else’s determination and to which the non-compliance effects one’s standing, and the law one wills of his own accord, and to which the non-compliance effects his conscience. The former is ethics, the latter is morality proper.
2.) Yes, Kant acknowledges the other, but only as other members of the set of all individual rational beings in whom the concept of morality can be said to reside. All such beings think the same way, and while experiences will determine some difference in conditions under which sub-sets of all such rational agents conduct their public business, if there are any principles under which all rational agents conduct their private business, then the groundwork of morality itself is given.
I wouldn’t say this is a correction, but rather an opinion based on a different understanding.
Your point? Can you possibly think that the little snippet you cherry picked was what I was commenting on? You think that was his point?
Im tempted to call you a coward sir, you should address his actual point. If you actually think it through, it is crushing to many things you have said here.
Drugs are generally immoral because they cause harm too.
Neither drugs nor lying are necessarily immoral because neither are necessarily harmful. But they usually are.
I think @DingoJones was getting at something along the lines of -
If you are in any way agreeing with my point, why wasn't the OP phrased:
If all aspects of human behavior contain some elements of immorality, then "doing illegal drugs", which is an aspect of human behavior, contains immorality.
Notice the arguments would all be with the premise (the "if" portion in case my formal philosophy is lacking), and I doubt the whole debate would have been nearly as intense. Also, that argument would have NOTHING to do with drugs, as any other activity could also be immoral.
I thought this thread was intended to be a debate about your second sentence above. Semantic disagreements and an unwillingness to accept the approximate truth of your first sentence has made it mostly about your first sentence.
I would challenge the assertion that drugs are "usually" harmful, but this thread has bigger fish to fry. (and we would likely just be debating the semantics of "usually" vs "sometimes" anyway) My agreement with your first sentence, far outweighs my disagreement with your second :smile:
Uff, philosophy is complicated. I actually pretty much agree with all of this. I guess I needed to define the word "decide". I generally lean toward not believing in free will, so I think (emphasis on THINK, happy to be corrected) I understand your point. I agree that granting people absolute autonomy in decision making is wrong, but if we grant zero autonomy then haven't we eliminated the need for philosophical discussion? (among other things) If there is no "decision" to be made, then why ask "how should we behave?"
I realized I did not directly address this bit. When I accepted that "breaking the law is immoral" I included the idea that, using that logic, EVERYTHING is immoral. If we do not admit that EVERYTHING contains some aspect of immorality, then I am less inclined to admit that "breaking the law is immoral".
Quoting S
Cool, so we are in agreement there.
Quoting Janus
Well if there is anything I can do to improve our debate experience, just let me know :grin: But be very specific. I have an emotional IQ of negative 12, so I will struggle to identify the significance in general sentiments.
I find that hard to believe to be honest; I think you're probably being too hard on yourself. And I wasn't accusing you of being one of those awful black and white thinkers! :smile:
Isn't it illegal to break the law, but immoral to break a moral code?
I just looked back, to the topic title: "Is it immoral to do illegal drugs?" A little thought leads me to the (simplistic?) conclusion that this is easy. If (illegal) drugs do harm, then it would seem immoral to 'do' them. If not, then not. Is there really more to be said to answer the specific question asked in the OP?
As a general point, it is neither moral nor immoral to break the law. But sadly, the reasoning behind this is trivial. A criminal breaks the law; her actions are illegal. A bad person does what is morally wrong; her actions are immoral. Of course, some actions will be immoral, some illegal, some both, and some neither. But there is no intrinsic connection between something being illegal and something being immoral.
Quoting tim wood
I'm afraid I can't answer your question, but not because I'm avoiding it. For a start, your question seems to assume that there is a shared and agreed knowledge of what is and is not immoral, in the general sense. I don't think there is. Immorality is not objective, in the sense of impartial. To determine whether or not something is [im]moral is a subjective value judgement, and one thing that a subjective value judgement is not is impartial. So I could give you an answer that is true/correct to/for me, but the opposite for you.
Secondly, if you don't want to focus on whether it is immoral simply to break a law, then why do you ask "Is it immoral to do illegal drugs"? Why not ask instead if it is immoral to do drugs? Or, if you want to zoom in more, to the drugs in question, why not list the drugs of interest? For all illegal drugs are different, and your question might be answered 'yes' for one drug, but 'no' for another.
Maybe this illustrates why other correspondents have disagreed with you so strongly?
Quoting tim wood
People not making arguments against your point is not the same thing as you not understanding or acknowledging them, which is what you are doing. You continue to be confused here.
What does that have to do with anything? I didnt say anything about me, my comments or your interactions with me. I said “people”, as in reference to people, not me. Its like you do not understand english.
I was pointing out how you have not actually responded to counter counter arguments.
I tried to keep that as simple as possible but something tells me you are going to continue to be confused.
So I got that going for me (silent fist-pump).
Quoting Janus
Well I am not convinced that emotional IQ is actually a thing, but if it is, I won't be at the head of the class :grimace: Maybe drugs will help? (just making sure I stay on topic, hehe)
I am going to try another example but relate it to this concept of "one must accomplish a greater good to justify acting immoral". I think if we acknowledge degrees of morality/immorality that changes the problem.
Take eating healthy: Is there any question that eating healthy is more moral than eating unhealthy? So every time we eat unhealthy we have to justify some greater good? Notice eating unhealthy does not cause enough harm to matter as a moral qualm. A lot of drug use would fall in a similar category.
A little thought isn't enough, and your conclusion is indeed simplistic. Naïve even. Lots and lots of things cause harm, but not all of them are immoral. That kind of hasty thinking only just scratches the surface. You'd need to develop a more sophisticated set of criteria to get it right.
I don't wear hats. I wear a necklace adorned with the severed ears of my enemies. I've got one of yours on there somewhere, I think.
Quoting tim wood
Sigh. Well, you don't simply "decide", no. At least nothing like, say, deciding what colour to paint your bedroom. Not if you take ethics seriously, as I do. I practically cannot help but judge murder, for example, to be immoral, because of the feelings it provokes in me. And that's not contradicted by someone else's judgement. I don't go by someone else's judgement. But sure, it's intelligible to say that murder is moral for someone else. What of it? We don't need to go into meta-ethics here, in a normative ethical discussion. Do you understand that? Do you understand the distinction?
You are correct sir.
Of course there is. Morality is personal. Laws, properly drafted, are communal; social. Laws, at their best, reflect the consensus morality of the community. But to break the law - our communal average morality - simply leads to a communal punishment of some kind; to break our own personal moral code is to do wrong. And that's the difference between them.
While there are very many acts that are both illegal and immoral, the two remain distinct.
No, it's illegal to break the law. It's immoral to do wrong. Many things are both, and many more neither, but they aren't the same thing.
If the act in question does not interfere with the lives of others in any significant way, then I (we) do not need to worry much about justification.
The more my actions affect others, the more I need to justify my actions. When it comes to drugs, you have not convinced me of a need to justify. If I spend $1000 one year on illegal drugs and 3% of that money ends up in the hands of mexican cartels or Al Qaeda (and ignoring the fact that if it was legal, then that would not be the case), do I need to justify my contribution of $30 to global terrorism? Surely my use of plastic water bottles is a more major moral failing?
Quoting tim wood
I think almost everyone arguing with you would agree with this. Your concern over "illegal drug use" is the "extra piece of cake".
Quoting tim wood
So breaking the law is immoral, but we have agreed that this can easily be over-ridden by superseding morals. Sounds like "breaking the law" is the "extra piece of cake", with the superseding morals being of greater significance.
As I said:
Quoting Pattern-chaser...and some are one or the other.
Quoting tim wood
It depends on the law. If the law echoes morality (as it would in an ideal world), then it would be illegal and immoral to break that law. It would not be immoral to break a law whose purpose was not moral, but it would be illegal.
[ Highlighted addition is mine. ] It depends on whether that law is moral, immoral or amoral, doesn't it?
Huh? These laws are passed and accepted by communities, and if we break them (and we're caught), there is a penalty to pay. Zero obligation? I think not.
Quoting tim wood
Laws are social; morality is personal. Both have penalties associated with breaking them, but they're quite different.
Quoting tim wood
Do you not see me distinguishing between that which is community-based - or "social", as I originally wrote - and that which is based on the individual - or "personal", as I originally wrote? The law applies to every member of a community/society. Morals apply to all of us too, but not the same morals! Each of us has our own personal moral code.
Quoting tim wood
As above, you're getting confused between society and the individual.
Quoting tim wood
I just want it to be clear to any 3rd party, why I deserve to be shot :smile:
Americans! :gasp: Guns aren't the answer to everything! Thinking about it, guns aren't the answer to anything.
Seriously: can you offer some sort of reasoning behind your claim? Please explain how killing someone with a gun is more moral than their using illegal drugs?
Quoting tim wood
That seems awfully harsh and insulting considering the post that Patter-chaser was responding to looked like this:
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Care to explain how your response here DOES NOT suggest that in some cases (at least) it is more moral to shoot someone than to use drugs? As far as I can tell, it does not even need to be implied. It is fairly directly included - Quoting tim wood
I thought that, but it's nice when someone else does too. :wink: :up:
Some people fall back on insults when their position is challenged. Sad.
Oh, no. This is binary thinking at its worst and most imperceptive. The OP asks "Is it immoral to do illegal drugs?" Our answer, to summarise, is "not necessarily", while yours is "yes".
If I say to you "I'm not convinced that P" (where P is, as usual, some proposition), I am not saying "I assert that P is FALSE". Do you see? Just because I'm not sure if P is TRUE doesn't mean I believe P is FALSE. It means I'm not sure. It means I believe that either of these positions could be correct, or even neither of them, if there's something we missed.
This is a nuanced argument. There are cases where it is immoral to break a particular law, in a particular set of circumstances, and there are cases where this is not so. I will not argue for X or for NOT(X) when it is obvious that sometimes one is the case, and sometimes the other. Morals and law sometimes overlap, sometimes not. Nevertheless, they are distinct. They are not the same thing.
All yours.
No. Consider: I am a paedophile (no, I'm not, this is a little thought experiment), the greatest bogeyman of our time. To me, my practices are morally acceptable. To you, and to many others, they are not. But we can all agree that my practices are illegal.
Morality does not disappear in such cases, which only illustrate the personal nature of morals. Morality varying from person to person does not make it disappear. Hair colour varies between individuals, but colour does not disappear as a result.
Quoting tim wood
No. I accept that my community places certain obligations upon me, and if I disobey them, I will pay some kind of penalty. My community does not try to impose its morals onto me, and if it did, I would resist. Everyone does this, don't they?
Quoting tim wood
The latter. But the law does bind me, it's just that that binding is not a moral one. It's a simple and unqualified binding that my community places upon me: that I conform to its will, or get punished. My community is not a moral authority, it's just my community. I am a member, and it has certain expectations of me as a result of my membership.
Quoting tim wood
Now you're just asking whether laws and morals are inextricably linked or not. They are not. They are not unconnected either. They overlap, but they remain distinct.
Quoting tim wood
No, the obligation(s) are put in place by my community, all of them (probably including me). My community doesn't tell me what's right and what's wrong. It's religions that do that. It just tells me what it expects of me.
Yes, we get it. Notice when you say "breaking the law is immoral", we answer "it depends" but then give examples where other morality obviously trumps following the law (Schindler is a nice easy one in case you forgot).
We understand that I said Quoting ZhouBoTong
And then you responded, Quoting ZhouBoTong
However, you don't give an example. To people like Pattern-Chaser and I, there is NO CONCEIVABLE SCENARIO where I deserve to be shot based on my actions above. But you are claiming there is. So Pattern-chaser asked for an example. Depending on what possible experience would lead to the conclusion that I should be shot for my actions above? And beyond that, show that the action of shooting me was less of a moral failing than my breaking the law?
Well, I tried my best, but this has gotten a little ridiculous (I guess it was already ridiculous by the end of the OP). Keep up the good work :smile:
How do you connect right and wrong to accepting community membership?
Here:
Quoting tim wood
Says who?
Quoting tim wood
No, but the obligations are not moral obligations. Being a member means accepting the rules of the 'club'.
No. I think that may refer to a law. :chin:
Quoting tim wood
Morality is knowing what is right and wrong, and using that knowledge to make judgements of what is right and wrong in situations that arise in RL.
Quoting tim wood
This may be the core of our mutual misunderstandings. I am not at all sure that reason alone is sufficient to explain or understand morality. Emotions and feelings play a large part in determining what is right and wrong, which is why morality is personal. What's right or wrong for me may be wrong or right for you, if you see what I mean.
Yes, of course. It imposes doing-right. Sometimes, we are able to recognise and obey that imposition. :wink: In theory, where you live, we do that all the time, of course. :smile:
Quoting tim wood
Straw man. No-one said this. Tawdry. :vomit:
Quoting tim wood
You think this is the case, in real live humans in the real world? I think this is an "ought" rather than an "is", on your part. It is usual for those sympathetic to science/logic/objectivism to deny or minimise the impact emotions and feelings have on our lives and on our decisions, but empirical observations show the lie. Right or wrong ( :smile: ) people behave according to their emotions and feelings, maybe more often than they listen to the still small voice of reason?
Millions of poor US citizens voted for Trump. Reason or feelings?
"feel good about" = (morally) "right"? No: straw man.
So you suggest that we can recognise that which is morally right because it makes us feel good, and I am the one who's incoherent? Hmm.
No. I see only another of your straw men. :chin:
And I should qualify my statement. Not all drugs are usually harmful. Just some. Heroin, for instance, is usually harmful. Some drugs are more harmful than others. Tobacco and Alcohol probably do more harm overall than, say, marijuana. Some are worse than others.
But it could be the case that prohibiting even the most harmful drugs causes more harm than permitting people to take them.
https://images.app.goo.gl/KJeWFze2bh3azuND7
(This video also serves to underscore and clarify some of the not seeing eye to eye going on between Pattern-chaser and tim wood, at least it does to me)
If we take ethics to mean the general rules of "right and wrong" held by a given society as contrasted by the diverse sense of "right and wrong" arrived at by respective individuals within said society being considered their morality by terminology, this may help clear up the confusion close-ended umbrella terming is causing here. The distinction being that ethics are society's overall "right and wrong" guidelines, morality being each individual's adopted choice of "right and wrong" (this "individualistic" morality can be -- and predominantly often is -- perpetuated to be shaped via religion, or other types of "group" school of thought, of course, though others choose a less mainstreamed, less definable stance in their personal morality, remaining open to maintaining an amorphous view with only certain definable inclinations/aversions being their definite drawn lines in the sand.) The commonality being that both ethics and morality both operate in the scope of "right and wrong."
Seems to me Pattern-chaser is more making a distinction of morality from overall general societal ethics, while tim wood is protesting that such a distinction is perhaps disqualifiable, and that the bottom line is "right and wrong" is inherent, axiomatic. This is what I've understood.
Perhaps partaking in drug culture (both the ones considered natural like shrooms and cannabis as well as more fatalistic varieties, like heroine and cocaine) may technically be unethical -- as reinforced by the legal system of society -- but, not necessarily immoral (since drug use may not go against their individualistic sense of "right", therefore, not being "wrong").
Despite the negative arguments made in opposition of recreational drug use by others, perhaps opposers entail that in the process of manufacturing the product, much curroption occurs and is in a way enabled by it's demanders being inconsiderate in not being discouraged by the grim grander scheme; but in turn, drug users can postulate that if the product were legal, this corruption could be resolved, and requiring drug users to instead deprive themselves in order for society to appease the majority is in and of itself curropt. Drug users might go on to further argue that the risk of overdose and the normalizing of potentially fatalistic and certainly health hindering drug use should be considered legally ethical -- like the known elevated risk but non-illegality in stunt driving, handling dangerous animals, combat sports, smoking, drinking, having a grossly unhealthy diet, etc. and that then habitual recreational drug users could finally be able to climb out from under a sense of shame and disapproval many of them otherwise contend with. As a significant perk, the selling and distribution of said drugs would be taxed and boost the economy.
This would, however, drastically change open norms and have further ripple-effect ramifications in other aspects of society, the whole if/then concern comes into play.
My double-think in the above example was posed with all intention. The point being that there are concerning reasons for why the complexity of what seems as undermined issues (like "why not legalize all drug use if people are going to sneak around to get high either way?") aren't so easily given into and do present quite the conundrum. Depending on one's personal idealism, the changes that would be brought about -- along with the notions and allusions it would become open to in turn potentially find to newly be counted as acceptable -- could be a "good" or "bad" thing, ethically and/or morally. After all, Slavery in the form that was established here in the States has been outlawed, biracial Black and White couples can now be legally married, as well as can homosexual couples (these are resulting effects I personally find are "good").
Still, I agree the further out consequences of such a sensitive but wide-spread and relevant issue is significant.
If you don't conflate the law with morality, you could then explain what your morality is and where it differs from the law and where is it the same as the morality inherent in parts of the law. You are correct that one cannot argue that the murderer was wrong because he or she broke the law. That would be hypocrisy. But you can have all sorts of moral arguments about why it is ok to break one law, because the act is not immoral, because the law itself is immoral, some combination of the two - and why it is not ok to commit the act of what you would likely call murder. So if people here are arguing that the reason it is OK to take illegal drugs is because it is always ok to break the law, then their arguments are silly, unless they accept being murdered as ok also. But if they have more complicated arguments, which include the idea that it is ok to break the law in certain circumstances, then they need not be being silly. And most people would break the law in some circumstances, while at the same time think that others breaking the law is problematic unless certain criteria are met.
I get that from your perspective that should be the starting point. But the people in question may, for example, identify as Christian and where the law goes against that sub-community, they will feel obliged to break the law if it means they must sin.
It would be one thing if there was a like a big caucus and we decided which group we wanted to have a society with and then made up laws we considered moral. But we find ourselves in societies, and then also in subcultures and our sense of morality may go against the morality in the law. US law, ironically enough, even allows for one to break the law on moral grounds - necessity defense - if one can show that it was so important - in ways that the wider societies values - to break that law. It is a rare defense as far as working, but there it is, in the law itself, the idea. That opens the door - though I think it is already open - to the idea that breaking the law can be moral.Quoting tim woodI get that, and it's good to have that clearly stated. I don't think I have ever met someone who did not break at least minor laws - jay walking, say - when they felt they could evaluate the potential consquences, etc. But it is possible that some people, you being one, never do this, or consider it per se immoral when you do.
I don't think this is the case. And right now we are working at a very abstract level. Would this be true for women in Iran, abolitionists who broke the law aiding escaping slaves, dissidents in the old USSR, revolutions against royal power, colonies like the US breaking laws to leave the Empire. Once it is is moral in some situations, we now have to decide when. But perhaps even in those societies you would hold the same stance. And I do have sympathy for the idea. One can look at is as a kind of contract with the other members of society. And in many situations I certainly want people to exhaust other means: try to change legislation, protest, whatever - if these things are allowed - before breaking certain laws - in specific societies.
But otherwise no, I do not feel obligated if I think the law is immoral to follow it. There could be instances where I would feel it was immoral not to break a specfic law. Using illegal drugs not being one of those sets of laws.Quoting tim woodWaht are the consequences of following the law? In some situations this might include reporting people to powers that would commit immoral acts against them.
But even in more mundane situations, tracking consequences is very tricky. Some one can track, some I don't think so.Quoting tim wood
Well, my first argument is that we need to get specific. Does your sense that it is immoral per se to break the law hold regardless of the laws/society involved? If it does we can discuss examples like the ones I mentioned. If it does not hold regardless of the laws and society, then your questions about consequences and grounds and the rest is also one you would need to answer.
Quoting tim woodNice, clear. This will help clarify where we agree and disagree.Quoting tim woodThis is certainly one of the arguments.
Quoting tim woodre: breaking the law on moral grounds. yes, we may disagree. But once we agree, then it opens a door where we must think as individuals. Below you say...
Quoting tim woodI could follow laws and pretend I am not thinking, but I am making a decision to follow them. You are using thinking to judge people for breaking the law. We use thinking to come with laws. It is a huge responsibility we each have, whether we follow or not and when and why and how much we thought and how we decided to trust ourselves to go against what some other thought or to go along with them.Quoting tim woodI don't think thinking that one law is immoral means you think the whole system is wrong. I don't think an abolitionist need think that laws against rape are wrong or even that a government can make the laws, in general, is wrong.
Quoting tim woodThat is certainly what the state expects and many of the citizens in it. Though, again, I notice pretty much everyone then breaking at least small laws when they think they have the skills needs or whatever to make the judgement it is OK in this or that instance or in general. They offer wine to their minor kids and give a talk they think makes for a more healthy whole than not doing that. They jaywalk. They double park because it's the only way to get their kid to....And yes, for most they are minor offences, but the door is open and I would guess that most citizens do this. So I have a state expecting me to follow all laws and consider them moral and a sort of base contract. While at the same not legislators, enforcement (police) and my fellow citizens also clearly make at least small exceptions - iow they think they are small, they think they can make the decision. And most of them would agree that they would break laws in other countries if they were born there if following the law was immoral. And in past times they would break laws they considered immoral.
I see no communal consensus on this. I also see a contract as having arisen around me. Yes, I could emigrate and place myself in the confines of another contract, in another society. But I cannot head out to the frontier and live in the Rockies in my shack and avoid the contract. I don't know how to view that contract. I made no promise. I had no real choice. I did not make the contract.
Now I do things like jaywalk but I have not committed crimes against persons or property. I do follow the laws in the vast majority of instances. And I understand the need for laws the commonly shared practices and morals they become. I get that. But I am not sure why I need to see the laws I dislike as anything other than customs, which have punishments if broken. I don't see why I need to see them as moral.Quoting tim woodCould you expand on that?
States are based on values also, say those in the Declaration of Independence - and if you are not from the US, perhaps there are ideals, images, propaganda, values that are touted at official events, in government explanations for their choices, legislative, policy, oversight whatever. In the US these values can be seen, often, to be at odds with particular legislation. Should one listen to the promises and values in the PR or the laws.
One does get punished if one breaks the law and is caught.
Must I for some reason consider my behavior immoral also. Must I agree with the majority, if it even is the majority that thinks it immoral? If I break a law I take a risk. This may or may not lead to anxiety. But here we have the practical measures the state takes for those who break the law. It has decided to approach the issue with prison and fines and probation and so on. Yes, there are also statements by politicians about why the laws are in place, but the primary method is punishment for breaches of those morals the law covers.
I see myself born into a system with flaws and positive traits and a whole lot of messages about how one should and can live. These messages do not always fit with the laws. These laws do not always fit with my morals or my sense of what the state should or even should be able to tell me to do.
yes, my concluding this is reached by my thinking. And people who theoretically do not think may follow laws that are immoral. But the fact is they think. They decide to trust authority, the authority they have been told to trust and to adhere to it. Often they just assume that if it is illegal it must be bad. This is poor thinking from my perspective. And it leads to the conclusion not only that they and others should follow the law, but even how they vote. This is all a form of thinking, one they are responsible for and one that has consequences.
Did they think well?
Could they consider considering these laws a little more carefully?
Do they ever look at history?
This last section is me responding to what seemed like incredulity that what I think might be allowed to lead to my behavior.
I see no way to avoid this.
I can see avoiding thinking for oneself, which might be leaving open the possiblity of believing something more controversial, though perhaps moral.
Wow. That raised so many issues and implies that use of drugs that are illegal is always by addicts or that everyone who uses illegal drugs is compelled. It just assumes that legal approaches are best for addiction, let alone for people who use who are not addicted. It seems unconcerned that legal drugs are killing people in huge numbers and that the difference is not the level of addiction between legal and illegal, but the kinds of effects on the outlook of users. And as someone who has counseled drug addicts you are incorrect. Often addicts deny they are addicted or under any compulsion. It can take years to get them to see they need help to get off the drugs and that it isnt', for them, a free choice in the sense it might be for a non-addict.
They now know that a very high percentage of addicts were abused as children, severely abused. We treat them as criminals rather than as people who society let down. The criminalization has led to the highest rates of incarceration in the world and the war on drugs was consciously started to attack and control minority communities.
Did you know that in Switzerland where heroin addicts instead of being incarcerated were given medical quality heroin, almost universally survive and after a period of tend years, after reducing as their own choice their doses, stop using. They hold down jobs and do as well as people who drink alcohol. Portrual decrmininalized narcotic use. It is still illegal to sell. but not to use. The number of deaths dropped down to almost no difference from non-users. people were not longer incarcerated. Their is less HIV being contracted and less crime committed by users.
Even the most critical of the new policy, such as members of the narcotics squads in Potrugal now admit that this was the right decision.
The drug war has a racist history, racist enforcement and have created a great deal of the violence around drug distribution.
Anyone who only complains about drug users thinking it is OK to use drugs while not also being critical of the drug war and much of the legislation related to it is being immoral I think.
A nice read about this is.....https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Scream-Opposite-Addiction-Connection/dp/1620408910
This does not resolve the issue of whether one has an obligation to follow those laws or laws in general, but that passage and your quite insulting reaction to the other poster led me to go into this issue a little. It's just a sketch.
You said what he said barely rose to the level of speech. Your response was extremely poor.
Tim - Apologies if this question was already asked and answered - I read through the discussion but did not see it.
If I'm following you, then there may be reasons for breaking a particular law if a higher or greater morality or rule attends breaking it, but in this particular case - illegal drugs - there is no such higher or greater morality that requires you to break it (as would be, say, in the situation of not telling the Nazis that you have hidden a Jewish escapee fro a concentration camp.)
Am I representing you correctly - or am I at least close?
Here's a follow up question - but if you're uncomfortable divulging personal information I would not hold it against you for not answering.
Have you ever deliberately broken a law? Have you ever knowingly exceeded the speed limit or jaywalked?
Yes, that's a worthwhile distinction to make, I think. So society's laws reflect its ethics, but morality still remains a personal thing. And I suppose we must acknowledge that it is (by definition) unethical to break a law, but not (necessarily) immoral, using the two terms as you have defined them.
I don't have an answer to this - I'm still trying to figure it out. That's why I'm asking questions. :smile:
Quoting tim wood
What are the criteria for deciding which laws fall into a separate topic? Many people would consider taking certain drugs under certain situations to fall into the same category as exceeding the speed limit.
Probably because that's more or less a foundational moral disposition for him: it's immoral to legally control what people can choose to do with their own bodies.
Let's hope you never break an arm or ever need major surgery. Guess that bottle of Captain Morgan will just have to do the trick. :joke:
Although prostitution's "immorality" in and of itself cannot be rationalized to being "wrong" due to high risk fatality (seemingly, for the most part), perhaps use of designated "unnatural" drugs can be introduced, measured and monitored in such a controlled environment. Does anyone think the compromise can be applied?
So first, there are going to be stances that are at least functionally foundational in a given context for an individual. These are behaviors that people approve or disapprove of, categorically as stated, where they're not based on other stances. All morality starts from that.
Morality is preferences about interpersonal behavior. It's not any particular preferences. Many people have many preferences in common, and that's both due to biological similarities and cultural influences, but morality isn't cultural primarily, because cultures can't literally make judgments. Only individuals can.
carry on.
No. That's simple enough. ;-)
I didn't take what you initially said at face value. That was the point (I added on to your sarcasm, at least, I thought so).
Quoting tim wood
Maybe it's a matter of relevance? Some people are known to huff glue, paint and cleaning products. It's not common enough to merit legal relevancy though -- people in the US can do this legally. I bet if the practice become prevalent, citizens would make complaints, lawsuits would ensure ("my kid wouldn't have huffed fumes if your school didn't leave paint idly lying around, and everyone knows huffing is how kids resort to trying to get a high now; this needs to be addressed and scrutinized.")
The specifics differ, but the overall issue would remain: there's something that people are using to alter their state of consciousness aimed at euphoria and it's believed the risk outweighs the perks. You don't see parents getting worked up over the rush their children get out of consuming pop rocks or the hightened energetic output they get from caffeinated beverages, not to the extent of feeling it moralistically poses a threat to the wellbeing of the nation's kids.
What makes ruling the use of drugs in this manner immoral while there are other ways -- arguably less effective and more harmful that are still an option to anyone looking to try to get in some way high -- not immoral to also make a legal acknowledgement of and enforce safety measures of regulation out of the sheer risk and known instances of use? Because it doesn't catch on, it's ineffective, so, it doesn't merit regulation? Or maybe because there isn't a sub-cultural identity to huffing chemicals?
Do you personally find that if huffing chemicals was as pervasive as the use of heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, etc. that it would be immoral not to make using it this way punishable by law for the moral of posterity?
Moreover, was it ever immoral for citizens whom disagreed the eighteenth ammendnet to disobey it before it would be repealed by yet another ammendnet, considering it would eventually go through a change in legality?
Quoting Terrapin Station
IMO, there is something "wrong" (immoral) with going full laissez faire in the case of drugs. That would be reckless. Even alcohol use and smoking have regulations set in place, for the "right" reasons.
But that's the point, they have regulations, which means they have their place in society. Because society still refuses to apply the same kind of moderation to other substance use, there's no opportunity to put circumstances in place to determine how to most appropriately make drug use inclusive. To me, this is why drug use currently contends with unchecked corruptability and is resoundingly epitomized by worse case scenario (by the worst cited cases). In hindsight, going about it in a "it's the principle of the matter" way defeats the purpose, especially when you take the link of statistics tim wood himself provided into account.
Like anything else, there needs to be a middle ground, a grey area. Otherwise, mutiny insues when there's no room for trial and error, or even being allowed a chance of incorporation.
Quoting tim wood
I truly believe your motives are founded in noble intention, tim wood. Still, I think there are blind spots and a bit of rigidity here.
I say this from personal experience. Being an individual born in the US, I find that for me it is difficult to feel connected to the community I find myself in the middle of, to feel unified with this society. Does that make me a terrorist? I don't want to terrorize anyone. It's not like a switch with the only two settings being "camaraderie" or "contrarity to camaraderie." I'm somewhere in between, and to many aspects of little to no pertinence to me, downright indifferent and aloof. I am, however, not antipethetic to aspects of society I find not particularly relatable to me.
I agree with you in that there ultimately is a responsibility we have to one another. I guess were I deviate from this considering your take is in the implied nature of how in practice.
I come off as conspicuous and unapproachable, yet, non-threatening and self-possessed. I live off the road your residential neighborhoods is situated off of, but I am homeless and am trespassing on the city property further out and parallel to you and the other families dwelling there. What am I? A nuisance? A trespasser? An ignominious character that serves as an example for you to relay to your children as a cautionary tale of some grim alternative? Am I a person? Am I symbolic, to be objectified? I'm not your neighbor, am I? I'm in the "wrong" aren't I?
Maybe buy a drone with a camera and scope out my concealed lifestyle, for the sake of community vigilance, a preemptive assessment. Maybe do some mild tracking if you happen to be driving back home and notice me on my bicycle off to do who knows what when not dwelling in the woods barely half a mile away from your proprietary home and those of the neighboring peers you've come to bond with, value and look out for.
And maybe one day, your spouse is crossing the street and I happen to be riding my bicycle on the other side of the road. A car is speeding right through because the driver is too busy arguing with his girlfriend in the passenger seat and is blind with self-contained rage. The road is hilly and your wife and I don't notice them until the car is flung over the arched road with a reverberating roar of it's engine. My instinctual reaction is to veer of the sidewalk and shield the woman who is a perfect stranger to me.
I'd do that, and to be honest, I don't entirely know why, but I know I would.
So yeah, I may not be uber ideal on paper nor the authority on morality, productiveness and don't manage to properly dispose of debris I tend to accumulate in my makeshift abode. I don't have resentment toward the American dream or those whom are living it much closer to their ideal than I am.
Yet at least two or three times a day, my presence is an allergy to those in the community approximated to me, and the methods employed to gage me (so to speak) do make me feel cancerous. The gawking and mockery make me feel "wrong."
You don't seem to mention what you think is wrong with it.
Correct. Why on Earth you'd think that anyone would have some moral obligation to do everything they can to live as long as possible, I don't know.
Quoting tim wood
There's no way these things are anyone else's business so that there's a moral problem with them. The moral problem would be prohibiting people from doing things that are risky, that can threaten their own health, even their own life.
Quoting tim wood
Implied . . .via people who want to control others making it up?
Still struggling huh?
Using illegal drugs is unlawful, not immoral. Two. Different. Things.
The greater risk for potentially uninformed and unprepared fatality comes to mind. A thirteen year old shooting up for the first time and dying of an overdose because his friend Wayne -- who's only two years older than him -- has been using for years and knows how to measure and administer, what can go wrong? Something like that can be made much less probable with protocol in place, that is what I see wrong about laissez faire drug use, it seems right to instead offer higher fatality drugs in a drug shop (let's call it). You must be of an adult age, and a licensed professional measures and administers, lowering the risk of unnecessary fatality.
You can't smoke in many establishments to prevent second hand smoke, can't actively drink or already be drunk while you drive or are a teacher instructing children, etc. Makes sense that restrictions be especially applied to partaking in recreational heroin, cocaine and crystal meth given the symptoms.
Unless you also don't agree with the restrictions on smoking and/or drinking (you seem to allude to not being up for placing any sort of restriction/regulation in the least bit, I could be wrong).
I promise you that at some point in the conversation I will give my take on this and give you the opportunity to critique it. But right now I'm still trying to fully understand your position. It may seem like some of my questions come across as implied criticisms, but that is not my intent - at least not at this stage of the conversation. :smile:
Anyway, can we review your last comment/question - I did not quite follow what you were saying:
Quoting tim wood
On Monday December 10, 2012, the private consumption of marijuana was legalized in Colorado. So, as I understand your position, at 11:55 PM on Dec 9, 2012 it was immoral to consume marijuana and then at 12:01 AM it was no longer immoral. Or to put it another way, the immorality has nothing to do with the drug usage, but is only linked to it's illegality.
Am I accurately getting your position? Or am I getting this wrong and your position is that marijuana usage is immoral even if it is legal?
Inflicting nonconsensual violence on another person isn't at all the same thing as people engaging in consensual activities. It certainly is your business if someone is inflicting nonconsensual violence on someone else. It's not your (moral) business what people consensually choose to do.
Quoting tim wood
It's not "beyond the boundary of reasonable, rational discussion" just because you say it is.
All I can imagine is that you're so ingrained into the current status quo that you can't parse something that would be that different from it.
What do you believe it's at all difficult to be informed about here?
Also, in your view it's morally wrong to do something to yourself that you're uninformed and unprepared for because?
Quoting tim wood
That's some sense of entitlement there if your generalization here is sufficient to allow "right thinking members in the community" (as you've so coined) to compromise other members within the community's individual rights automatically at the very whiff of daned "immorality."
Quoting tim wood
Things aren't always what they seem though. Ever hear of role play? What if (hypothetical, not really wondering in the case of the couple you're actually referring to) they were role playing and didn't want to break scene because of your interruption? Anyway, the thing to do would be call the police -- this is the authority in whose jurisdiction this ball falls in the court of, not you. Not to make the woman being beat a statistic overall, but, in these cases, it's often probable shes had numerous opportunities to take off on this guy yet doesn't really put herself in a position to where she reasonably rids herself of her supposed stalking, abusive husband (subconcious role play that convienently releases her of having responsibility of her "abuse," how convienent for her, must be fun feeling like Helen of Troy with everyone having to rescue the helpless damsel irl).
Just want to make it clear that this man is still an abuser, but if his wife developed Stockholm syndrome -- like many women in these situations do -- then she isn't entirely helpless, she is enabling this pattern. Call the police for the beating, call a psychologist for her mental health. Any woman in her right state of mind would find a way to break out of this otherwise.
Why isn't calling the police on active crimes a viable option? Citizens are taxed for them to civilly serve and interfere in these instances.
The greater risk for potentially uninformed and unprepared fatality comes to mind.
— THX1138
What do you believe it's at all difficult to be informed about here?
— Terrapin Station
To me, it wouldn't be like ordering the wrong part to your car because of going by your mechanic friend's advice or getting the wrong diaper size for your kid. A mistake in drug usage isn't always that reversible, and has the very real possibility of being fatal. Maybe Wayne's confidence in his drug related skills are off, but it's his friend -- who just wants to get high and not die -- who could end up dying.
I dunno, that's just me. I have tried out cocaine once and crystal meth about five times. I don't have friends with drug know how, these were just other guys I met up for random hook ups and coke or meth was offered. Honestly, I would've felt more confident if I had gotten high on these in a place like a hookah bar.
I also liken it to surgery. You want someone who knows what the heck they are doing when you are getting something that sensitive done.
I guess if the law didn't need to weigh in on restricting who can do these things, I'd hope it would at least allow for the option of finding people verified to have experience and skill for peace of mind.
Still, I'd find it wrong if it wasn't more of a given (for my and others' benefit, we don't all have it -- connections -- like that, and can get duped with fake merchandise or another drug that isn't at all what was requested), which is why I apply morality when considering this not being the standard.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Although I do believe there should be some reasonable regulation or protocol to avoid living in a world like The Purge, I side with you on with the "My business is my business" approach (considering I'm a Schizophrenic with this exact acute concern).
Everyone chooses what part of their lives to share. I never reveal my full hand of cards. What I share on here I'd never share irl. Last thing I need is someone with some personal vendetta against certain aspects about myself going for me out irl when I don't go on that way. All the people I've significantly wronged -- which I can count with my ten fingers (without needing to use them all) -- I've reached out to and without being made to have to, acknowledged my wrongdoings and asked for their forgiveness. I'm fortunate that they were all kind and sincere enough to help me not hate myself for what I've put them through. No lynchmob, no getting-back-at-him antics, no mind games. I doubt I can ever get close to the kind of individual who'd resort to doing that to someone and considering it a rightful duty anyway.
I suppose there can be some that can do a little and leave it, but has anyone ever said that a person was better after they started doing heroin?
No, not both. Two. Different. Things.
You continue to conflate morality and the law.
There is nothing morally wrong with taking an illegal drug unless there is a moral/immoral reason not to take the drug. It doesnt matter if its legal or not, because it is a moral question not a legal one. Get it? Moral and legal are two different categories, if you are asking a question about what is lawful or unlawful then it is a legal question...if you are asking about what is moral then it is a moral question. They are two different things with different priorities to different people and different goals.
As has been pointed our before, your framing of the question is tainted by your moral objections to taking drugs. Thats whats driving you here, obvious to anyone reading. If you want to ask an honest question then you would be asking whether or not it is moral to break any law....but of course your whole premiss goes up in smoke once you do that because its so so easy to show that in fact breaking the law can be the most moral thing to do.
I know what you mean.
So I really am out of here now, It's been a hell-uva ride. A rollercoaster of downs and downs. But I feel on the level now. Peace to all.
I'm still wondering what you're thinking it would be difficult to be informed about when it comes to drugs.
Sigh, I wish I had better insight about what you are going through to be of support. I guess there's nothing I can do to be of some comfort to you man.
Maybe not so much difficult as risky. Anyway, I'll probably take that risk again someday. Maybe it's just my paranoia, just always feel like a guy would if he's about to have unprotected sex with someone who gets around when I have an opportunity to partake in these kinds of drugs (which fortunately isn't often).
That's understandable. The issue, though, is why should other people be able to legally prohibit you from choosing to take those risks? Why would you want to give other people that sort of dominion over your life?
If the law is immoral, I have no problem with people breaking it, and ideally, I'd like the law to be nullified via tons of people breaking it, or refusing to enforce it as juries, etc.
Each individual. Morality is a matter of individual judgment.
"Right" morally refers to an preference of behavior that an individual has.
There is no objective "right" in the sense of "correct" when it comes to morality, because there are no objective moral judgments.
Well, not for the most part. I'd probably be okay with other people taking these risks (if they prefer), if I didn't have to when seeking out the same drug.I just Ser some regulatory enactments as good when people want to be risky even to the point of risking the wellbeing of others in the crossfire (like smoking in establishments and imposing second hand smoke on everyone in your proximity, drunk driving, etc.)
Last thing I want to do is give other people entitled dominion over my life though. That would be quintessentially "wrong" (immoral).
This actually tells me a great deal about what Im dealing with here. Stunning.
How can you possibly know the meaning of the word “conflate” AND not understand how it applies here rather pointedly?! You sir, should look it up. Then, stop and think about what other egregious errors you might be making.
In the meantime Ill be here, contemplating what little hope humanity has. Little. Hope. Hopeless, one might say. I will think on the hopelessness of ALL mankind Tim Wood, because of you and what you’ve done here today.
Sure, but that's not saying that it's immoral to do drugs or take risks oneself. The issue you're bringing up is an issue of putting other persons' lives at risk nonconsensually. That's a different idea. You can put other people's lives in danger nonconsensually with all sorts of things, including texting while you're driving, including other (legal) chemicals you have on your person that are dangerous in non-ventilated spaces--like turpentine, say. Those things aren't at all specifically issues about drugs/drug-taking.
It seems like there's maybe not a clear idea (in general, based on other posts from other people, too) of the difference between consensual and nonconsensual activities?
"If the law is immoral" --obviously I'm saying in my view.
You're doing that thing where you're figuring that people are going to defer to an "objective view." An "objective view" is a category error for this realm.
I've had some unfortunate life experiences on this matter. Accused of all sorts of things I didn't intentionally go into thinking to myself "this is non-consensual and I'm aware of this in my going through with [variable]" as being a violation against consent.
So to answer the focus of the thread IMO, no, I don't think it's immoral to do illegal drugs.
It wasn't even immoral to drink in a speakeasy during prohibition, just happened to be illegal.
Quoting tim wood
As opposed to asserting that A and B are one and the same and no different, that then it's contrarily the very designation of differentiating a concept into A and B that is the fallacy.
Isn't that what you're proposing, that differentiating A (immorality) from B (illegality) is a fallacy?
And yet we (he) still go to jail if we break the law. So what was destroyed? It seems you are attributing much more to "law" than it typically entails. I have no more "duty" to obey the law than I have a "duty" to use proper grammar.
Moral foundations have nothing to do with reason. They're purely individual preferences.
And, in this case, you personally find the above applies to drug use. Is it accurate to infer that?
Can you give me an example of what it wouldn't apply to referring to an example that can presently be found here in the US [A not immoral because illegal] ?
How and in what sense would you say it imposes duties? Do you just mean things that you'll be possibly fined, arrested, etc. for?
Ahh, so on your basis, either way, the law always involves morality.
Quoting tim wood
Based on your intertwining of morality and legality, it seems it would be self-contradictory.
I should have worded the formulation differently.
A something not immoral (or moral, irrelevant of morality, in other words) when said something happens to be illegal.
But, seems that in your mindset, legal concerns are all founded on moral building blocks. No absence of morality in legality.
...And, to add, that morality is always "right" by nature, that there can be two moralities (two "rights") that seem to contradict but that impression would perhaps just be subjectively superficial? Or is that formulation also self-contradictory, maybe even nonsensical?
Moreover on this, it can even be argued in your way of thinking that even if something considered moral that happens to result from an action not executed with moral intention (like infidelity from someone in an arranged marriage that produces genuine romantic love) should still be subject to penalty due to the nature in which it was done.
It's nonsense to say that a foundational preference could be based on reason, as it would be an attempt to overcome the is/ought problem.
How do you propose you'd have a foundational preference that has something to do with reason? What would be an example?
It makes sense to say that there are duties a la things that are legally enforced, for example. But if that's what you're saying, then (a) obviously there are no duties to use particular grammar, which was his example, and (b) even if there were, obviously he was saying that he disagrees with the notion of that.
Huh???
First, what was Adler's supposed resolution? If I read it in the past, I don't recall it.
It seems that we are introducing a new variable into the original question - namely that the immorality of drug taking depends on the level of self harm it might inflict on a person (along with any collateral damage to society).
You seem to be saying that occasional recreational marijuana use appears to be non-harmful and thus it is morally OK to consume marijuana - provided you do so in a place where it is legal.
However - and please correct me if I'm misrepresenting you - you appear to be saying that it is immoral to consume certain drugs even if they are legal.
E.g., in your viewpoint is it immoral to consume heroin in a country where it is legal - say Portugal?
Hence why I said foundational. "If you want x" would be the foundation. You can't get to that from an is.
So it's not even addressing the claim I made.
From a fact to a value statement. "Ought" is a type of value statement. As is "I like grape juice" and "I want grape juice."
Saying that something is the "is/ought problem" is a way of mentioning that you can't derive any value statement from an objective fact.
Vitamin A, and other vitamins have an effect on your body. It's up to each individual whether they value that effect or not. There's no objective fact that the effect it has is more valuable than the effects of not having vitamins, or that you should value the effects or anything like that.
So I don't die. So I don't kill anyone. So I don't get hurt or hurt anyone. Because I don't want to get a ticket. Which of those defines my driving on the right side of the road as a duty? They all sound like "desire for intended consequence", which, although my philosophy knowledge sucks, I think Kant used as a counter/opposite for duty.
Oh, and what was the answer to this:
Quoting ZhouBoTong
In my mind, all that is destroyed is the sense of duty. The law is still 100% intact.
I'd like to go back to our earlier conversation about exceeding the speed limit. If I followed you correctly you said (or at least implied) that speeding was not immoral because people typically do not deliberately speed, it's more of an unconscious decision - likely you are going along with the flow of traffic.
Quoting tim wood
Quoting tim wood
But given that the laws are collectively decided upon by the community, when you speed you are violating the collective decision that exceeding the speed limit is dangerous not only to yourself but to other fellow citizens on the road. Is it as dangerous as taking heroin? I don't have an answer to that - and in any case it's irrelevant. The community has made the decision that speeding is illegal, and you must accept that obligation. And there is clearly no moral obligation requiring you to speed under normal circumstances.
So it seems to me that if you want to be consistent in your approach, then you must conclude that exceeding the speed limit is immoral.
I said, "Vitamin A, and other vitamins have an effect on your body." That's a(n objective) fact. What's not a(n objective) fact is whether the effect is good or bad, desirable or undesirable, something we ought to pursue or not, etc.
The idea isn't at all that people do not judge things to be good or bad, preferable or not, recommendable or not, etc. Obviously we do.
Rather, the world outside of people does not judge things to be good or bad, preferable or not, recommendable or not. Those judgments are something that brains do. They're not something that rocks, the atmosphere, a music CD, a vitamin A pill, etc. do.
sounds like semantics to me.
Quoting tim wood
I don't accept it as duty, nor expect others to. Hence the need for laws.
It's what's at dispute if we're disputing whether value judgments can be objective.
We do, individually and collectively.
Value judgements are not objective, by definition. A value judgement is a subjective judgement.
Exactly.
"I like x" isn't an objective fact. It's a subjective fact.
"It's good" is a subjective judgment that an individual has to make, for whatever reasons they make it. "It's good" can't be the same as any objective set of facts, because no objective judgments such as that obtain.
Reason is subjective. It's a mental activity.
Facts are states of affairs. Ways that things are. Remember that the subjective/objective distinction refers to mental phenomena versus non-mental phenomena. So an objective fact is a state of affairs that is NOT mental phenomena. A subjective fact would be a state of affairs that is mental phenomena.
A subjective judgment can't "become objective."
You're asking when particular sort of mental phenomenon can become the same phenomenon, just without it being mental. That's not possible.
A heroine addict mother wouldn’t be good for her child hence it can be immoral?
That depends on who you ask. (And for many who answer, they're going to want some details, they might be careful not to conflate various things, etc.)
Who would disagree with that? That a mother addicted to heroine is worse for a child than were she sober?
I don't at all categorically agree with it, for one.
Synonyms for "phenomenon" include occurrence, event, happening, fact, situation, circumstance, experience, case, incident, episode, sight, appearance, thing. (Source--Google dictionary)
Quoting tim wood
That's not at all the case, since most of the world isn't brain phenomena.
Why can't we have discussions around here that aren't so patronizing, by the way?
Second, is it not immoral to lock a person up for exercising their free will? For smoking or snorting a plant? If any immorality is done it’s by the lawmakers and the people who demonize other for what they don’t understand.
To do something with it, there has to be an it. Most of the world is the it. The division is between our brains functioning in a mental way and the it--everything else that exists.
Somehow this discussion of illegal drugs has morphed into a discussion that maybe should go under the Philosophy of Mind category.
But as long as we’re here, I’ll jump into the waters - hopefully I can clarify them instead of muddying them.
The crux of the difference here (as I’m seeing it) is that Tim is asserting that mental activity is ultimately based in the physical world, whereas Terrapin is asserting that there is something fundamentally different about mental activity.
I'm with Tim on this, and here's my reasoning:
We already have machines that can measure mental activity - albeit at a very crude level. Will these machines advance to the point where we can measure mental activity at such a fine granular level that we can distinguish pleasurable physiological responses from un-pleasurable ones? That remains to be seen, but in my opinion this is possible.
So while the statement “Coffee ice cream is good” is clearly a subjective opinion, the statement “Tim Wood likes coffee ice cream” is a description of a measurable/observable state of affairs - namely that when Tim consumes coffee ice cream it produces a physiological response that Tim describes as 'liking'.
Of course I could be wrong. It could be that there is some unknown factor that will prevent us from ever measuring mental activity at that fine level of granularity. We can speculate that perhaps there is some quantum mechanical thing going on - and any attempt to measure mental activity at this level of granularity alters the very thing we’re trying to measure.
If I have misrepresented either of you, please gently correct me. . . . :smile:
That's very simple: you observe it via your senses.
No, I'm not saying anything at all like that.* It's simply that we can create categories like "Fender amplifiers" as opposed to "everything else," or "Trees" as opposed to "everything else," etc.
The reason for bothering to do that with mind and everything else, whereas we don't usually do it with Fender amplifiers and everything else, is that (a) people, including frequently in a philosophical context, tend to reference mental stuff for obvious reasons, including that they want to talk about knowledge, about values, etc., and (b) people frequently say very confused things about mental phenomena versus other things, where they project mental phenomena onto other things, akin to supposing that you could use a tree as an amplifier.
(* Well, or if I'm saying something like that, it's in the same sense that I'd say "there's something fundamentally different about bookshelves and bacteria and stars and automobiles, etc."--a la everything has unique properties, and we can't just ignore that and pretend that everything has all properties in common.)
There's nothing problematic or inconsistent about it. Among the things in the world are brains, shoes, ships, sealing wax, cabbages, etc. It's a simple matter to locate properties/phenomena in each as opposed to the others (or as opposed to all others). That way you don't try making sauerkraut with your shoes, you don't try sealing a letter with a cabbage, and you don't look for a rock's evaluation of a musical piece.
A pronoun substitution for the objective world. The objective world is the nonmental world. You observe it via your senses. There's no problem there (aside from philosophers who haven't even managed to reach the object permanence stage of psychological development).
Is it too much to specify an inconsistency?
lol--that's nothing that I'm claiming (and it's rather ridiculous). At any rate, it's not an inconsistency to disagree with something that someone else is claiming. In order for me to be uttering an inconsistency, I have to both be claiming P and not-P.
Quoting tim wood
No. That's not at all a fact. Representationalism is wrong.
Why do you believe that representationalism is not wrong?
So, to use what you mention just above, a tree is an example.
You're the one being obtuse. I told you that I do not agree with "you don't see the tree." I said that I believe that claim is ridiculous.
I asked you why you believe that, why you buy representationalism, and you didn't answer. So what's the answer as to why you believe it?
C'mon, man. Don't do that stereotypical Internet crap. Let's have a serious discussion. What's the reason that you believe representationalism? This is the third time I'm asking you and you just ignore it every time.
There are different stances in philosophy of perception. The view you're endorsing is one of them. It's known as "representationalism." As you say, "whatever you take to be the tree is just your mental representation." That's representationalism in a nutshell. You believe that what we're actually perceiving, what we're actually aware of, is something mental, where we have no idea how that mental representation actually links up with things external to us (assuming there is anything external to us--under representationalism, there's actually no way to know), because under representationalism, we have no access to things external to us--at least not aside from some possibly "mystery access."
You're treating representationalism as if it's some obvious, common sense default position. It's not. It needs to be justified. So that's what I'm asking for--your justification for believing that "We don't actually see the tree/we're not actually aware of the tree. We're instead only aware of a mental image or 'representation' of the tree."
There must be a reason that you believe that to be the case, no?
When it comes to philosophy of perception, I'm not a representationalist. I believe that representationalism is unsupportable, and any attempts to support it rather wind up undermining it. I'm what's known as a direct or "naive" realist instead.
I'm trying to follow this discussion. I thought I understood what was going on, but maybe not. Tim - can you clarify this:
Quoting tim wood
When you said this, were you stating your position - OR - were you giving an illustration of what you perceive to be Terrapin's position (presumably in an attempt to demonstrate that his ideas are incorrect)?
BTW - and this goes out to both of you - I would not object if the level of invective came down a few notches . . . . :smile: