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Well, you're obviously missing the main point. I can't choose for other people, and I don't want to. I am not morally apathetic because I always do what I consider to be right from my view within any circumstance.
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No, I lost track of my own thought processes and left it at that. After rereading my own lost track recently, I still cannot divine where I was headed. Oh well. As to your point, I am not terribly certain that I can pin it down. I've stated mine, rather concisely in my original post, yet I am having trouble with yours as it has been, on occassion contradicted, or at least it appeared that you contradicted what I thought was your point.
In all honesty, you have befuddled me. While I can see that you are a person who claims to refuse to make moral judgements on anyone else's choices, you claim to follow Social Contract and concurrently claim to be interested in security and safety. I cannot make the points jibe.
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I said "generally", not always. If there is an exception to the rule, that means that the rule isn't universal.
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Hmm, I reread my posts. Where, precisely, did I use the word universal, or even imply universal consistency?
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I don't need to call murder "immoral" for it to be a choice that I wouldn't make.
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Come again? Are you saying murder is not immoral? Come now, take a stand somewhere. If we cannot agree that the willful and purposeful taking of the life of another sentient being against their wishes is immoral, perhaps it is best that we devolve into argument by definition. You obviously are not using anything remotely close to the definition of immoral if you are unwilling to call murder immoral. It is, perhaps, not the height of immorality, but it is bloody close if not.
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Yes, I don't like it (as I said before), but I think there is a reason that people commit murder. I know that it is the ultimate negation. Personally I understand for myself that since I cannot commit suicide, and as such, committing murder is also wrong for me for the same reason. I am under the assumption that when people kill they do it either because they think it is the right thing to do, or they are mentally unable of processing right and wrong or self-control. Which brings me to my next thing:
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When is murder the "right thing to do"? Please be specific. For argument's sake, the quick definition of "murder" from dictionary.com is "The unlawful killing of one human by another". I am curious as to when it is "right" to murder.
The second issue I have here is that you seem to be implying that someone who is mentally imbalanced/damaged/incompetent is something taken out of the moral equation. Why does this preclude anyone from considering their actions immoral? Why are they removed from the moral equation in the first place? Take sociopathy for example. This is a person who knows very well what right and wrong are, what morals are, and what society expects. They act entirely without morals simply because they consider themselves somehow beyond/above morals. Are they not immoral if they murder/rape/maim?
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When one cannot make choices that match with their morals because of mental illness, then I would say that they need mental help. That has to feel terribly like Bad Faith, and every instance I've seen of people that do horrible things from their own perspective that they don't want to do feel really guilty and don't want to do it again. Have you ever listened to a panel of convicted child molesters talk about their crimes, they hate themselves for what they've done, and they fear themselves for what they might do. Mental help sometimes is the only want to stop one's self from acting against one's morals.
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And this has bearing on the moral equation how? By your posts above, their decisions were obviously motivated by their own moral code, and they are correct in their code-based decisions as their code is correct for them, again by your earlier arguments. Why would they need help? If they are asking for it, I can see it, but if they are not? Do they still need help? Would you force them to get help? Why?
Is child molestation immoral? How far does your moral relativism go? How blighted an action can you condone and tolerate out of some misguided desire to not impose your will on anyone else, even if it means they destroy the innoncence of your own child?
I asked, "Do you consider your laissez faire atitude towards morality to be healthy?"
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For the individual - yes. Since most cultures have good reasons that they don't want people killing each other randomly and stealing from each other, most people tend to follow the Social Contract out of self-interest (this should sound familiar if you've read Hobbes). Almost everyone follows self-interest as a rule, and the outliers who choose to break-out of the Social Contract significantly are going to be far and few between because of the basic reasoning behind self-interest.
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What good reasons would these be? Why would most people choose to follow them? Is there an Enlightened Self-interest pamphlet out there explaining why we should not against the Social Contract and morals be damned?
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If a Social Contract violates self-interest, then acting against it by any means is absolutely healthy from the individuals perspective. I suggest you read "Woman at Point Zero" by Nawal El Saadawi for my perfect example of someone who violates the Social Contract and for purely personal reasons (not structural change) and I admire her.
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Who determines self-interest, and what controls exist to keep self-interest from expanding beyond the point where others are compromised? The answer to the first question is simple - the individual determines what is in their self-interest. What is your answer to the second question though? If I determine that you having a car is not in my self-interest, then I violate the Social Contract by stealing your car, have I not acted, by your definition, in a perfectly healthy way?
As to your reading selection, my booklist is pretty bloody full. I figure if I win the lottery and never have to work another day in my life, I might just be able to read all the book on it currently. This also assumes that noone publishes anything else that I'd like to read.
I asked, "Do you think that more people should hold true to your attitude towards morality?"
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I think everyone should choose for themselves. Obviously I think that I am right, or else I wouldn't be saying any of this.
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Actually, it is never obvious that someone thinks that they're right simply because they're arguing a point. Watch lawyers debate, or philosophy majors for that matter. I have personally constructed multiple thousand word arguments on matters that I cared not a whit about, or even agreed with the other side on. Debate is debate.
I asked, "Do you think your culture would be a better place if everywhere had your attitude towards morality?"
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Couldn't tell you, I don't have a standard for describing what a "better place" is. I think that if everyone followed their own morals, our world wouldn't look all that much different than it does now. People break the Social Contract on a daily basis, I watch the news. Some of them get caught, some don't. Either way they pay some consequences. Here's a sort of Machiavellian scenario to consider:
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Really? You don't have a standard? Have you never travelled outside your chosen culture and experienced the world in areas dissimilar to yours? If not, I heartily suggest it. You will learn more perspective from travel abroad than from any amount of studying.
Yes, you do see people breaking the social contract daily on the news. Now, think about the percentages. Think about the miniscule number of actions that break with the social contract in meaningful ways. The overwhelming majority of society quietly go on day to day gladly keeping with the social contract.
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A man runs an orphanage in a culture where it is ok for adults to beat children, and orphans have no value in the eyes of practically everyone. The man visciously beats all of the children for little to no reason (i.e. looking at him wrong). Two of the children died from being beaten to death, and the macro-system doesn't care. One day a man walks in on him doing this, and he's struck with a passion: this isn't right, I need to do something about it. So he tells the guy to stop, and he says "why? they're just worthless orphans..." After an argument that gets nowhere, he leaves. He appeals to all of the higher class citizens in his society for help to stopping this - no luck. The police don't care. There's no legislative process here. He tries absolutely everything he can within a system to stop this, and nothing works. He gives up on the idea of changing the cultures feelings because he thinks it is a lost cause, but he sees that he can make a difference in the children's lives. One day, he wants into the orphanage, takes out a gun, shoots the man in the chest killing him, and walks out. He leaves an anonymous phone message to the police from a pay phone saying that "I heard a gun shot at the orphanage, you should check it out." He feels that he fulfilled his moral obligation. Most everyone in the macro-culture when reading about this story is horrified. How could someone do this?.
From my view, this action, though not a route I would take, is also not immoral.
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The man running the orphanage, per his won society, is within moral standards. I would argue that the society itself,
by my personal moral standards is morally deficient if it allows such behaviour. I cannot gracefully say much about the second man as you did not include information in your hypothetical example as to whether or not this child-abusing society tolerates killing. I am of the strongly held opinion that murder is immoral regardless of society (and I would be interested to find a society that did condone murder as moral), and as most societies agree with me on this, I woud hazard to guess that the second man is rightfully called immoral.
It is my hope that you will have already explained how you could consider murder not immoral in an earlier part of your reply, as I've already asked that question.
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Another example: John Brown. I could not do what he did, but a big part of me admires him. He alienated a large percentage of the people both in the north and the south with his terrorist actions. People were not ready cognitively for the jump he made towards violence, and if he wasn't made into a martyr I doubt it would have changed many attitudes. This is an example of violating the Social Contract to affect change. Both examples here are examples of violating the Social Contract out of personal morals that conflict with macro-culture. The first example you would call morally deficient, because by the time he went in to kill the man he wasn't doing it for affecting a change in the macro-culture. I don't know where you would stand with John Brown.
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You admit to admiring a terrorist? That takes some sort of bravery in this day and age.
I would also consider John Brown morally deficient simply because of the means used to advance his ends. While I can certainly appreciate and condone attempts to change and evolve society from within, I have a hard time accepting terrorism and John Brown's other numerous crimes as moral.
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The world is too complicated for me to feel as though I'm justified in calling acts immoral if there is a reason behind them, even if it results in murder. A murder from someone who didn't actively choose to murder, but did it out of mental illness - this would be an amoral action with serious consequences, from my standpoint.
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This makes no sense. I must ask again how you can consider murder not immoral? I cannot conceive of the sheer lack of perspective that would lead one to be incapable of calling ANY act immoral.
Is there any act that you would not condone?
I asked, "Do you think your culture could survive with your attitude towards morality?"
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Probably, since most people value safety and self-interest, just like I do. I don't see anything wrong with creating a Social Contract. Structural consequences do wonders for order. You don't need everyone to agree to the same things for a society to work, just a significant majority.
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Do you consider law enforcement necessary within society? If so, do you think police officers would be even slightly effective if they were incapable of calling ANY action immoral and wrong? If your answer is "They enforce law, not morality", my follow-up question would be to ask what the legislature should base law on? Would they be effective if they could not make judgement and call actions immoral when they plainly are? Who should decide who protects and why?
Or are you merely saying that you, specifically, are incapable of making moral decisions, and that is a personal deficiency and not a philosophical choice that drives you to indecision?
Caveat: I am not attempting to purposefully be insulting. I realize, however, that some of my language and tone may be construed as such. I can honeslt ynot express it more clearly, and do not wish to obfuscate the point. I ask that you realize that my state of mind is one of confusion at your lack of position, not outrage at a perceived lack of morality.