wilbjammin

I have a tendency to do that...

Ok, so then, you want to know perhaps, what is immoral then? (since I've said that I don't think even murder is necessarily immoral).

The answer is actually fairly simple. Immorality in my view, is only when I act against my personal morals. That is it.

I said earlier: <b>Of course, generally I follow standard cultural morality out of convenience and agreement, and there are some things I am willing to work towards creating social change for.</b>

and

My point regarding your quotes was simply that even though I generally do follow the Social Contract, if there are at any times moments when I don't follow it, then I am not holding with the common morality... and I am ok with that. You didn't imply universal consistency, and I wanted to make damned sure that I didn't imply that either.

I find it difficult to think of a single act from another that I would deem to be immoral. Since I am not in that person's shoes, I imagine that in every case that the Social Contract is broken by someone it is because they value something about their morals over that of the system's morals. Then, even though the idea of what they've done may threaten me on a visceral level "I can't believe someone would do that and think it is ok", at the same time I can't get past thinking that the person actually thought it was ok enough to do (or compulsively couldn't stop themselves from doing). I would hope that most people would be against the idea of murder for the same reasons that I am, but if they're not I'm not going to judge them as immoral (because, for whatever reason, it is right for them).

Since my scope for what is immoral and moral is limited to myself, defining for everyone else what is right and wrong for them is irrelevant.

I make exceptions for the mentally ill people that are incapable of making moral decisions. Quite simply - they didn't know any better. Sociopaths know what right and wrong is for society, and can't apply it to themselves. But... arguing this any further is irrelevant because I don't have access to the inner-workings of people's minds and their moral structures that they operate under. I have to assume that everyone either breaks a social moral code out of personal moral reasons, or because of some mental breakdown that doesn't account for morality. Like Mersault in <u>The Stranger</u>, he killed the Arab, but it wasn't his intention. Every action has intention behind it or is done compulsively, morals are implicit in this.

The Social Contract does. Nothing about how everyone chooses their morals (implicitely or explicitely) limits them and their society they are in from making agreements to protect themselves. Basically, a Social Contract attempts to create a series of freedoms-from (not freedoms-to) agreements. The 1st Amendment operates as a freedom-from speech repression, not the freedom-to speak freely. The Social Contract merely creates consequences for violating these freedoms - thus, added incentives for choosing the cultural morality. In actuality, we all have really long lists of freedoms-to and we cross a lot of things off of the list because we don't want to face the consequences... though truly we're permitted anything, we just may have to pay consequences for it. Thus - self-interest!

Law enforcement is necessary for a society that wants to have order and relative safety. I think police officers can be very effective if they followed by belief that the only thing you can call immoral are actions that you do that violate your personal morals. Thus, a police office can, if he believes that someone is violating another's safety and has a personal moral for himself or herself that safety is important, act to enforce safety. I personally believe that law should be based on what legislatures believe is the greater good for all society, but I understand that most laws favor a certain privileged few. The legislative branch is designed for people to discuss and make decisions in an open forum to create their own personal ideal society. Some legislatures value the greater society as a whole more than personal wealth, power, etc... others don't. In any event, all legislatures operate in what they believe their best interests are in conjunction with their morals.

Laws are essentially arbitrary because the people who make the laws can't possibly make laws that benefit absolutely everyone equally. There is nothing wrong with this. As long as one lives in a society with a legislature, they will have to put up with judgement calls being made for them on their behalf. There is nothing necessarily immoral or moral about this process, it simply is a device created by people to create order that has been successful because more people find it in their best interests to follow this system than to not.

"Who should decide who protects and why?" is a troubling question (this line of thought is what made me decide to not become a lawyer, in fact). After thinking about the arbitrariness of laws and their penalities and after running into cops that piss me off because of their blatant biases and after reading stats that show that black people are more likely to convicted of certain crimes than white people deciding who should have these powers is a tough question. It all boils down to the creation of our governmental system and the lack of people coming up with an alternative that addresses this in a way that was satisfactory enough to get people to agree to it. There is an inherent arbitrariness to any society, and there is no way that I can conceive of to overcome this. So, events are going to happen that violate whatever Social Contract is created, and this is a normal reaction.


I could write more, but I think I've answered the essence of your newest line of questioning. I understand that I probably haven't been perfectly clear in explaining myself and I hope this helps.

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Innominate.