1. Don't kill - if you can avoid it. Unless you have to for (immediate) defense of self or others, or to eat. Notice, this does not say "Don't kill nice people" or "Don't kill people in your particular group" or even just "Don't kill other humans".
2. Don't steal - exceptions are made for literal starvation, otherwise if it's not yours, behave.
3. Don't lie - if you can avoid it. Telling your grandmother you love her meatloaf is fine.
4. Don't rape - period. Really? Somebody actually has to state this one? Wow.
5. Don't maim, torture, mutilate, kick, etc. - Again...Really???? Tell me this is a rule everybody just knows...
6. No slavery - period.
7. Treat people equally - until their actions earn either praise or caution. Then be fair, and if you can't be fair, err in the direction of kindness.
8. Educate yourself - and others, when it's not obnoxious.
9. Think things through - just this one would help immensely.
10. Control only yourself - let other people make their own decisions.
1) Scarcity is one of two basic sources of value in all economic systems (the other being usefulness). Life is scarce in the universe (while "usefulness" is entirely subjective, scarcity is objective). Ergo, life has value.
ReplyDelete2) The primary goal of any individual life is individual survival. From an economic standpoint, interference with the survival of an individual is only acceptable when said interference increases the survival of other individuals, either in larger number or increased scarcity (usually through complexity). As such judgments are difficult to do quantitatively, interference in individual survival should be restricted whenever possible.
3) Individual survival is predicated on many factors, most of which are internalized and expressed via biomechanical means within and from the individual. Interference with the expression of such internalization, either directly or indirectly, is an interference with the survival of the individual and should therefore be restricted whenever possible.
4) Individuals expect and in fact require accurate information and data in order to be able to correctly internalize and express behaviors and desires. Any interference with the ability of an individual to obtain or express accurate information is, therefore, interference with internalization and expression and therefore should be restricted whenever possible.
5) All aspects of the environment of an individual affect the ability of said individual to internalize or express desires and behaviors; this is especially true of those pieces of the environment that said individual has acquired or obtained actively rather than merely experienced. Any interference with the environment of an individual, especially the actively maintained environment, is an interference with the expression and internalization of behaviors and ideas and should be restricted whenever possible.
(... I think that covers most of it. I've never actually written this down before, and I think the wording here is a little off, but it's something I've been thinking about a while.)
So, does it translate out this way?
ReplyDelete1) Life has value just by being life
2) Life wants to survive, so don't kill it unless you have to
3) Don't mess with somebody unless you have to
4) Don't lie
5) Don't steal
Well, (1) is more of a "life has value because it's rare". That's probably the weakest point, but I'm trying to formulate the basis for a rational morality; the key, obviously, is the valuation of life, as all the rest follows as consequence.
ReplyDeleteDoes the value of life have to be the foundation? What if life has no value outside of it's own perception? Could human morality be derived from simple behavior rules that allow people to co-exist with the least amount of trauma?
ReplyDeleteCommunal survival - basically, ethics - can be derived simply from shared need/goals. That's the fundamental concept of the social contract: I'm willing to give up my freedom to kill you in exchange for the freedom from being killed.
ReplyDeleteHowever, while such ethics are useful and for the foundation for our legal systems, they're amoral: it's isn't "right" or "wrong" to only go 65 mph on the 5 northbound; it's simply an arbitrary standard enforced for the common good.
It could be argued we don't need morals, of course. Morality, as currently exhibited in humans, could simply be the (in evolution terms) selected form of applied ethics, kind of a reinforcement mechanism for the ethical considerations that increase survival chances for the individual and the species. I might have to examine that approach more; I never thought about it from that perspective until writing this paragraph.
Well, part of what I'm trying to figure out is where the sense of right and wrong come from. In our culture, we assume that killing is wrong - except during wartime. In other cultures, ritual human sacrifice has been celebrated. Is right or wrong culturally prescribed or is there an absolute in there somewhere?
ReplyDeleteBasically, killing someone is not always wrong, unless it's me...
ReplyDeleteand what defines "me" changes, ya know? "Me" could be just myself, or myself and my family, or myself and everyone I know, etc. on out to the entire species.
ReplyDeleteIt's sort of self-preservation instinct gone global.
Killing of "our kind" is almost always universally wrong. What changes is the definition of "our kind" - you can watch this happen during civil unrest/civil wars, but you can even see it in political discussions.
ReplyDeleteThere's a theory that the sense of "morality" is innate, even if the specifics of the expression are not, though the only person I know who has done any real study of the subject - and who for years was considered a valuable expert - has seen been completely debunked. I personally think that a sense of "fair" is likely innate, but that morality is a complex code we lay on top of it to rationalize it. As I speculated above, it may be that we don't need morals at all and could be content with ethics.