Morality in Politics

You can still do them, although you'd be immoral. Ought not implies that you shouldn't do those things, and because the laws of morality dictates what you ought to do, how you ought to act, and that politics also describes a subset of those actions, then the political acts (which determine what you politically ought to do), must be in line with the acts morality allows or demands.

Of course, you can still do whatever you want and not follow morality, but you'd be immoral.

So everyone "must strictly follow in all cases the laws of morality", or not follow them.
Sounds more like guidelines of suggestions.

Well you must do it, unless you want to be an immoral jerk who has brought a world state worst than what it should have been.

>You can still do them, although you'd be immoral.
Why would I care whether or not I'm "immoral" by your standards?

What if I don't abide by the """Laws""" of morality but I bring about a better world?

How could the world be better than what it ought to be?

It's not my standards, it's universal. And i you don't care, then people who have reason to punish you and avenge themselves for the wrong you've caused until it's repaired, and you've lost all advantage you'd have gained from it.

Lets just say it is, what now?
Seems like those "Laws" weren't so ironclad.

>It's not my standards, it's universal.
nah

>people who have reason to punish you and avenge themselves for the wrong you've caused until it's repaired
If I'm a politician and my choice is between letting a nation die or ordering the death of an individual, I think I know which one will piss more people off.

It's impossible to bring a better world by not following the laws of morality, as in doing so you'd harm others and bring a world state which should not have been.

Then you'd be wrong. Why would it not be universal? If you're a free rational being, then the laws apply to you ; and since there's no difference between two free rational beings, thy laws apply equally to everyone.

And if you do that, you'd be immoral, and your rule ought to be overthrown.

What if there was a matter of morality that would randomly make things better or worse with no way to predict it, what """ought""" we do then?
I mean if we are just brainstorming here, we are free to invent whatever """Laws""" we want.

>If you're a free rational being, then the laws apply to you ; and since there's no difference between two free rational beings, thy laws apply equally to everyone.
But you yourself said we are free to not follow these """Laws""", so I guess the laws equally don't apply to anyone.

>your rule ought to be overthrown.
What if I make up a """Law""" that says it oughtn't?

if you could save your life by sacrificing your toenail, would you do so? of course you would, and it is not immoral in the least to do so
likewise the living body of a nation may morally sacrifice parts of itself in order to survive

I'm not sure I follow you, but the laws of morality are independent of our will, following Plato's Euthyphro. If we decide that X is moral, the we could also decide that non X is moral, which is contradictory.

You are free to not follow them yes, but you'd be immoral, as I've said.

See I can consent to sacrificing my toenail. A nation has no consciousness, only individuals have consciousness. A nation doesn't act, only individuals do. Therefore, a nation cannot consent to killing anyone. Those people who could be sacrificed to save others are the only ones who can consent to their own deaths.

>If we decide that X is moral, the we could also decide that non X is moral, which is contradictory.
So?

Which is moral, Chocolate or Vanilla? Clearly one of these must be moral and the other immoral, according to our immutable and transcendant """Laws""" that someone somewhere once thought of at some point maybe.

Well, considering it doesn't change anything to eat chocolate over vanilla or otherwise, then it's morally permissible to eat chocolate or vanilla or both.

Stop thinking of morality as a set of laws imposed on you by some spooky external force and start thinking of it as a guide to living a fulfilling life.

Morality is subjective.

See

Then by that token it doesn't change anything when I kill someone or shit on a baby's face or have to complete NINE captchas to be able to post.

This is just redefining morality from what ought to be done or not done to the set of criterion that ought to be accomplished for you to live a fulfilling live. It also implies moral nihilism, because then there's nothing you ought to do. Which means if for someone the path to living a fulfilling live is genocide (like Hitler), then that person, to live a fulfilling live, should commit a genocide. That's okay if you can rationally show there's no morality, but I don't think that's the case, especially when others have shown convincingly otherwise, like Kant.

Yes it would, because your act would be contradictory. If you decided to kill a baby or someone else, then you'd contradict yourself as you couldn't wish to kill yourself. And it would also be contradictory following the Categorical imperative, in all it's formulations, whereas I don't see anything contradictory or wrong in eating chocolate over vanilla.

Seems mighty suspicious that when I want to do totally harmless like shit on a baby it's nihilistic but when you want me to do something I don't want to do it's a """Law""" that I absolutely """ought""" to obey whatever you say.

Any shabby morality system that so casually dismisses the monumentally important choice between chocolate or vanilla so flippantly, while at the same time seems so irrationally hung up on the simple gesture of shitting on a baby, doesn't seem very worthwhile to me.

>This is just redefining morality from what ought to be done or not done to the set of criterion that ought to be accomplished for you to live a fulfilling live.
Living a fulfilling life is precisely what you ought to do.

>It also implies moral nihilism, because then there's nothing you ought to do
Not true unless you believe that any way of trying to be happy is as effective as any other. There are things you should and shouldn't do both in specific cases and as a matter of habit, it's just that there are no "laws" dictating what to do to everyone in the universe. That's some christfag shit.

> if for someone the path to living a fulfilling live is genocide
You don't actually believe that could be the case for anyone, do you?

Just to play doubles advocate, what if there was someone with a neurological condition where if he wasn't carrying out a murder he experiences inexplicable searing pain, but while he was killing he experiences an overwhelming rush of joy beyond that which typical people could ever comprehend. Lets just say that these two extremes blot out any other sensation such as regret or sadness. Wouldn't this person be more fulfilled by killing others?

>doubles advocate
Check these doubles.

I'd say that person is fucked however you look at it and should probably just an hero. Even if he can get some momentary joy from offing people, there's no way things are going to turn out well for him.

All right then instead of migraines + euphoria, lets walk back each of the pain/joy aspects bit by bit, until we find the sweet spot of angst + thrill that counts as a normally morally fulfilling life of a violent murderer.

It would still be better for him if he could overcome his condition and actually love people, but if that's really impossible and assuming he's free to inflict his sadism on people without fear of retaliation, then yes, I would say that's what he should do. But we're talking about a person who's very far from what we normally think of as a human being. Also, I'd add that it's not as if such a person is likely to be stopped by any amount of Kantian philosophy or any other argument.

That is the whole premise of Kantianism.

Kant would not have said that. The NAP is gay, if the entire universe and billions of people were going to perish, and you had the ability to prevent it by lightly scratching the back of an innocent person's finger, you would have to be beyond autistic to think the morally correct option was to sit back and do nothing.

but, friend, hear my plea

How do you cross the is-ought gap ? You say that we have to do so-and-so, however you do not mention how you arrived to it. Surely you must be making a mistake, because no one yet has closed the unfathomable ravine between these two shores.

>Implying that I masturbate

Any political ideology which doesn't have liberty as one of it's greatest principles cannot be moral OP, because people cannot be moral if they aren't free.

Slaves aren't responsible for their actions.

How would Kant not have agreed to that? Morality encompasses all of our actions, which presumably includes political ones.

It's simple : people are bound by the laws of morality they themselves can will in a non-contradictory manner, following the categorical imperative.

Well, have fun living with your contradictions and being immoral. In your shoes, I would be afraid, for real. Anything you ever that's immoral can never be forgiven or taken back : it's with you forever.

OP here, but to follow on what the doubles advocate said, you would then admit that mentally deviant people like pedophiles, ought to follow their desires? Your premise for morality (or for what you think is good behaviour) lies in a number games? In the assumption that the majority of people won't be that way?

Kant would have said that, yes. If the universalization of a maxim entails a contradiction either logical, following the first formulation, or otherwise following the two others, or that you could not rationally will to live in such a place where such a maxim would be a natural law, then the maxim and act which underlies it are immoral and should not be done. Since killing is moral, then killing someone to save a nation full of people is immoral.

In the case of scratching an innocent's finger, it would depend on the reason behind the maxim. I don't think universalizing such a maxim leads to a contradiction, so it should be fine. That's what I think Kant would say.

For my part, being partially Kantian, I would probably say that as well, though it would also depend for me on whether or not one would need someone else's consent to scratch a person's finger, as it is their property. If it turns out that you need their consent, then the entire universe be damned.

True enough. Not only can you not force people and do violence against their will as free agents, because yourself being a free agent, in doing so, would deny to others (their freedom) what you will for yourself (to be free and constrain others). Moreover, I think following Aquinas you could make a good argument for freedom ; as if you create a society without freedom, them vice and virtue (moral action) becomes impossible, which entails that such a society would not be moral.

Go back to /pol/

Autism.

The end justifies the means, their bodies will be the mortar used in creating the foundation of a greater nation.

no it's not simple, the categorical imperative does not cross the is-ought gap. At best, it's an interesting tool to evaluate different couses of action
>formulate a maxim to be made into a law of nature
>if it's not contradictory, then it's moral
how does that make an action moral, an ''ought'' ? you skim over that step, because it isn't here
you should not simply parrot what some ''great mind of the past'' declared before.

Yes it does, because it doesn't start from something that is, but from something that ought, i.e. what your will establishes as a maxim. It doesn't start from any factual thing of the world.

Also, it doesn't determine what is moral per se, it determines what is morally permissible. Since a contradictory doctrine cannot be moral, then it only determines what is immoral.

>Autism.
Great argument there, buddy.

that sounds like fancy sophistry, at best. Your will doesn't establish anything as an ought. Let me show why
>you have a will
>your will establishes a maxim
how does that follow ? How can it be said that possessing the will to do some action means that you establish a maxim ? Instead, you started with some craving and then a structured will guide you to the desired result, there is no maxim that comes into existence after the fact.

This whole theory comes off as some wonderful magic trick, but the gap persists

It's not sophistry. You will something (like you want to eat an apple), which means that you already are talking about an ought from your perspective, as if you decided to eat the apple then you have established a rule that you ought to eat it. The maxim is a formulation of that rule you set for yourself by deciding to eat the apple. And because you decided to eat the apple, you determined that it was better for you to eat it, than not eat it, so we're talking about an ought. There is no is n that situation. You might not have thought of the maxim yourself, but your action can still be described by one.

Also, to make things clearer, let us admit that you're right, that the will doesn't establish anything, and that it's just sophistry.

When you ask : ''what ought I do?'' The answer to that question must minimally be non-contradictory, it can't be illogical. Right? From there, even if you disagree with the specifics of Kant's categorical imperative or its three formulations, you can at least eliminate ''oughts'', or maxims which entail a contradiction for they would be immoral (they couldn't be something you ought to do, as it would be contradictory, therefore if you ought not to do it, then it is immoral). That test gives you the set of actions which are morally permissible, but it doesn't tell you what you ought to do, just what you ought not to do. For instance, it might allow you to drink coffee, read or do sports ; but it doesn't say if you ought to do those things. Those things simply happen to not imply a contradiction, which means they aren't immoral, and are therefore at least permissible.

Also, if you believe this isn't a valid solution to bypass the is ought gap, then what is your moral system? There doesn't seem to be any alternative, so anything can be done.

you gloss over the most important part each time and try to talk about things that differ from what I asked.
>You want the apple
>You deem it to be preferable to any other food
This does not lead to
>You ought to eat an apple
You didn't get to it by deductive reasonning, you didn't solve the is-ought gap. Stop mentionning irrelevant matters, because the crux of the question is not to be found elsewhere than here

You still haven't proven that
>muh laws of morality
Exist, or are somehow preferable. This 'better world' that you speak of, you have not proven it to be 'better', or better to the person specifically. Or that 'better' is relevant, or that 'reason' is correct or relevant or anything but a sense.

Fucking kid read Kant once and now thinks he's got it all figured out. Kantian ethics are for children drowning in Ressentiment. "Follow the law! It is good for you!"

Read my second example again. Even if I cannot cross the is-ought gap, the answer to the question what ought I do must still be logical and non-contradictory.

And I think that wanting an apple = establishing an ought. Because if you act on that desire, then implicitly you have decided that eating an apple was what you should have done. Otherwise, you wouldn't have done it.

Yes, of course.
However, often the situation is that if the nation perishes, more innocent lives will be lost than if that person was killed.

Also, if you want a clearer deduction of the thing :

You have a set of possible actions, let's call them A, B and C.
If A, then not B and not C.
A.
Then not B and not C.
Therefore, you have chosen that you ought to A, because you have deemed it the best possible action.

And if you were to justify why you chose A over B and C, you could say :

Because it I thought it was nice.

Then you could ask : why did you choose something that was nice?

You could say : because it gave me pleasure.

Then you could ask : why did you choose something that gave you pleasure?

And so on and so forth, and the ultimate answer you could give is because A was good, which is an ought.

If that's not clear and point out the flaws in my reasoning, and also please tell me what your moral system is.

The laws of morality are by definition preferable, because they dictate how you ought to act. What is better? Better is a relative term which describes something which is more good than somethings else, which means something that is more moral than something else (by definition).

Morality can be not relevant to you, yes. But you'd be an immoral person if it was so.

>The laws of morality are by definition preferable, because they dictate how you ought to act.
Not preferable; you're just being circular here.

Morality is a humanist construction. Kant is a nonentity humanist. Show me proof of moral laws or stop regurgitating what you've read for your first day of Philosophy 101.

I never studied philosophy, I'm nearly failed high school. And I'm not circular. It's a definition. Morality is what ought to be. What ought to be by definition means preferable, unless you mean something else by preferable, like something that is preferable for a specific individual in terms of their desires. But I assume you meant preferable to other laws which would tell you how you ought to act. If that's the case, then morality tells you how you ought to act in the abstract and in the absolute, in all situations, while other kind of laws (like the rules you could derive to become the richest man possible) are relative to a set goal, and therefore are a subset to the laws of morality. It would be nonsensical to claim that it is preferable that you follow the laws that dictate how you can become rich, while the laws of morality are by definition the laws that dictate what you ought to do in all possible situations, including one where you try to become the richest man.

No, that is circular. No wonder you nearly failed high school.

Also, if morality is a humanist construction, then doing a genocide is perfectly reasonable and okay.

And I can tell you that whatever the laws of morality are, they must be logical, which means they must not be self-contradictory. Therefore, any act or maxim which underlies it that is self-contradictory (for example following Kant's categorical imperative) is immoral.

The proof of moral laws is your own reason when you establish maxims for your actions. Reason establishes the moral rules.

>Also, if morality is a humanist construction, then doing a genocide is perfectly reasonable and okay.
You just made a moral claim you fucking idiot.
'muh rasins' isn't a reason, it's a cop-out.

I don't understand your question. Tell me exactly why it is circular, because I don't see it.

Morality = what ought to be done in all cases
Specific hypothetical imperatives = what you ought to do to achieve X specific goal

If you ask why is morality preferable to a specific hypothetical imperative (like becoming rich), then all I can do is point you towards the definition of morality and tell you that because it encompasses all actions, including those required to become rich, then it is preferable to follow morality if it is conflict with the actions required to become rich, because by definition morality is what ought to be done. Morality literally means the set of rules that are preferable to any other.

And? If there's no morality, then genocide just is. We can make moral claims about it, but they'd be false, since there's no morality.

I don't get your point. And what did I do that's a cop-out, I'm not following you.

>ought is good becuz i sed so
You don't get anything because you're an idiot.

What you ought to do means that you should do something... I'm just using the meaning of words here... How am I saying it's because I said so?

>You don't get anything because you're an idiot.
Yeah I'm an idiot, and? Just tell me where I'm wrong instead of just repeating how I'm a failure. You did more studies than me and you're smart, good on you, but tell me where and why I'm wrong.

>the meaning of words
Go read some modern philosophy instead of 'enlightenment' horseshit. You're being tricked by language.

Then what should I read?

And how am I being tricked? I'm so fucking lost and I feel like the dumbest idiot.

My asshole. Go do some research yourself.
You're extrapolating from a definition as if there is more to a definition than itself.

All I see is that morality is what ought to be done, I don't get what I'm extrapolating from it. Never mind, I just don't get it, you're probably right. Sorry.

Morality is not 'what ought to be done', not only is that a bad definition, but it is incredibly vague. Also, there is no reason to assume that 'what ought to be done' is the best thing to do. Or what 'best' means. No, 'best' and 'better' cannot be subjective if used in a moral context, if there is a 'moral law'. In addition, there is no proof for a moral law. I've read some Kant, and his arguments for morality are ridiculously weak. Kant is the vodka of philosophers: so many young idiots hype it up, but when you really try it, it isn't so amazing. Also, it's bland, easily mixed, and cheap. Trash or top-shelf, I want nothing to do with it.

Then what's your definition for it? And I was simply stating that when I mentioned what ought to be done, I didn't imply that is was the best (subjective) thing to do. It might be that what ought to be done is very harmful to a lot of people.

And for Kant there's no ''proof'' : it's just the laws (maxims) that reason gives itself for action. The categorical imperative is just a test to see if that maxim is logically coherent.

liberals want their politicians to be ammoral

>laws
'muh reason' and 'muh logic' don't exist.

Jesus Christ, it's the moralfag again.
Dude there's no such thing as objective ethics. Get over it.

Politics is literally the opposite of morality.

Guilt is biologically apparent in socially adapted animals. It's a mechanism that allows for self-sacrifice for the greater good, almost like an ant colony. Individually, guilt is useless. In fact, self-destruction is a biological imperative among most mammals with depression"; suicide doesn't discriminate between the mammals. Take an adult lion from its pride, and it will suffer depression, starve itself, become anemic, will hide, and will kill itself; depression, it exists in us all, and affects us all similarly. Depression is just a heightened sense of guilt; except instead of feeling guilty to "others", there ARE no "others", and is often mistaken for selfishness. In America where about 1/10th of the American population is on some kind of anti-anxiety med, it's also the most selfish country. South Korea is following that trend, also becoming a hotbed of suicide.

Anyway, the primal guilt comes from either not being intuned with society or not having society. The western environment, is void of society, but replaces itself with laws. For example, if law was taken out of a city, the city would be rampant with thieves and murderers, while the small close-knit town would thrive and cooperate with one another because law had very little bearing on them.

Politics is compromise; Compromise between whites and blacks, compromise between catholics and protestants, compromise between left and right, compromise between nationalists and critics... When you build a society on compromise, you are taking away their need for morals; laws replace those morals.

>Because if you act on that desire, then implicitly you have decided that eating an apple was what you should have done.

not an argument, doesn't logically follow

>Even if I cannot cross the is-ought gap, the answer to the question what ought I do must still be logical and non-contradictory.

yes, however you don't know what are the oughts amond the logical and non-contradictory that you should do, because you didn't cross the gap

>If A, then not B and not C.
A.
Then not B and not C.
Therefore, you have chosen that you ought to A, because you have deemed it the best possible action.

does not compute
at best, you can say that you have chosen to do A, not that you ought to do A. You don't cross the gap in this line of thought

>And if you were to justify why you chose A over B and C, you could say :

you can stop at because it's pleasure, i don't see how you cross the gap

pic related is my system of thought, my god, and even more, but let's talk about yours

you're quite smug for a pseud, know your place brainlet/poser

>muh biology
Fuck off, STEMsperg.

You can stop at it's pleasure, but if I further asked, why is pleasure important, you couldn't just answer, because it's pleasure. You'd have to answer because pleasure is good. The fact that you chose pleasure over something else means that you deemed it good, that you recognized it as an ought for you.

And even if you disagree with that, you cannot disagree that people establishes oughts all the time. For instance, I think that we ought not to kill others. That's an ought, and it is non-contradictory, so at best, I can show it is probably not immoral. Moreover, if I posit that I ought to hamper someone's pursuit of happiness, then that is contradictory, and therefore immoral, because I would deny to another agent who can will and has interests in the world, what I, also being such an agent, wishes for myself (happiness), and because there are no relevant moral differences between us, then it would be a contradictory ought.

And if you think all I say is meme-tier, and if you really have no real moral system, then why don't you commit genocides?

And? Even if what you said is completely true, if there is an objective morality, an answer to what we ought to do, then the biology is irrelevant, or only relevant insofar as objective morality would say it is.

>logic
>doesn't exist
Dropped.

I'm not saying that morality is objective... Just objectively biological. We have a tendency to think of a human as just an individual. We don't think of a cell in terms of its individuality; we consider the cell's natural environment, the human body. Humans, likewise, shouldn't be thought of in terms of our individuality but by our society.

Point is, our "collectiveness" defines our morality. If we are multiple collectives (or no collective at all) within a polity, then there ceases to be a morality on the political level, because political law (like natural law) transcends morality.

There are essentially no "Moral politics"... Just politics that are "more moral" than other politics.

Fuck off commiecuck.

you're forcing a bit too much when you say we could not stop at pleasure. I don't see how that follows logically, that I have to answer that pleasure is good.
why do i do i want pleasure?
>because it is good
why is that the final answer ? you will tell that, it is because good is good, so it ends the infinite recursion. However, the alternative,
>because it is pleasant
stands equal to the first case. Why do I want pleasure, because it is pleasant, pleasure is pleasant. The infinite recursion thus can be ended. I don't see why I should logically prefer the first explanation to the second.

And simply saying that people establishes oughts isn't a justification. They can postulate oughts, because that 's what seems to be the only way to cross the is-ought gap, or they might utter words lacking meaning, simply repeating them in a given context by absent-minded mimicry.

>The fact that you chose pleasure over something else means that you deemed it good, that you recognized it as an ought for you.
This step is also faulty, you simply reworded the same thing. Why does something that I deem good is an ought ? This derivation is dubious. Following this, if there was a person A thinking that eating bred squirrels is good, and a person B thinking that it is bad, would eating bred squirrels be an ought and not an ought at the same time ? This is breaking the law of contradiction. If you answer that they can possess different oughts, then morality degenerates in a subjective matter.

If your morality system arbitrarily dismisses certain actions while exaggerating the importance of other actions, i don't see why I should care about your social labels since they merely reflect your biases and emotional reactions.

lol he's back to ruin another thread

Bad logic. Pleasure isn't good.
>The fact that you chose pleasure over something else means that you deemed it good,
More terrible logic.

Goodness you are pathetic.
Prove otherwise nonlogically and noncontingently.

>Asking people to question their methodology is 'ruining a thread'
Ideologues, everybody.

>"logic doesn't exist"
>criticizes someone's logic

Delusional faggot.

>anybody who doesnt behave according to my autistic systems is just le crazy!