From: entropy@farviolet.com
Date: Tue Feb 03 2004 - 10:18:43 MST
On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Philip Sutton wrote:
> Damien Broderick's quote from Ken MacLeod can be thought about
> through the lense of in-group / out-group ethics.
>
> Lots of ethics have very different rules/guidance relating to how to
> behave in relation to the members of one's in-group (family, tribe
> enthnic group, religion, club, nation, etc.) as compared to the out-group
> (anyone else).
>
> Usually ethics structure this way lead to less nastiness between the in-
> group members but frequently more natiness in relation to the out-
> group.
>
> But this result doesn't prove that acting 'morally' or 'ethically' is worse
> than not not acting 'morally' or 'ethically'. It just shows that that the
> ethics/morals in question are not designed to reduce nastiness between
> outgroups.
There are two sorts of response to morality. One is following a certain
set of morals personally, the other is enforcing your personal morality
on others. The second set is where the problems arise, any moral morality
must allow for others disagreement with it without requiring that they be
killed in terrible ways.
Personally my morality is pretty simple, for the most part I'll take the
view that consent == moral. Morality is simply a respect for others beings
living the way they wish too. Of course there are all sorts of complications
when you start to form a society. For example housemates, couples, etc.
need to be compatible since there territory is going to substantially overlap.
People in a city need to have a common set of rules, for example they can't
be free to drive on whatever side of the street you feel like (nor always
free to drive at all when the population density is too high to support
cars). But people should recognize these as conventions and not morality,
people in another city/area who have another set of conventions are not
immoral.
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