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11-11-2008, 04:35 AM #30Senior Member
The Standard of Morality
Well... i think i arrived at the basic principles of the morality.
For many people, morality is to do not some thing for someone if you wouldnt like it were done for you (or treat people like you would like to be treated, etc). And i think it is the fundamental principle of morality, from what everything else is based or deduced.
This principle comes from the assumption that other people feels the same way that us. So, as i know that being treaded on the toe hurts, i wont tread on other persons toes, cause i will assume that it will hurt them, and as im assuming that they feel the same way i do, if i tread on someones toe, it will increase the "total pain" felt by the mankind, this "total pain" being the sum of all the pain felt by all human beings. (It can be also extended by all living beings). The "total pain" would be increased by the same amount, regardless the toe traded on were mine or not, so i should avoid tread on others toes the same way i would try to avoid be treaded on, cause both would increase the "total pain".
(Of course the amount of pain caused by someone treading on anothers toe depends on the weight of the treader... but im not discussing this)
And the same goes for everything else, so we could talk about the "total happiness", "total well-being", etc...
BUT, the central assumption of the morality, that people feels the same way that us, cannot be proven rationally. There is no rational way to prove this. We can only infer this. If im treaded on the toe, it hurts and i yell. If i witness someone being treaded on the toe and this someone yells, i infer, i assume that this person felt the same pain i felt. But it just CANT be rigorously proven, but only assumed, inferred. We cant (rationally) enter into someone elses mind to feel the way they feel. So we cant know for sure if they actually feels the same way we do. (In fact, we cant be sure, using exclusively the means of the reason and logic, that other persons even exist. For all i know, everybody else could be only a product of my own mind, an illusion or hallucination.)
So, the conclusion is that morality is not a rational thing. In fact, morality cant be justified by pure reason.
Note that im NOT saying that morality doesnt exist, or its false, illusory, or whatever. Im only pointing that morality is not a reason-based thing.
PS. Of course there are the people who had "mystical experiences" and this ones says that we all are one, so maybe they percieved that the "total pain", "total happiness", etc, are the only real feelings, and that "personal pain", "personal happiness", are illusions created by the illusion of a self. But im not one of them, so i cant talk about what i dont know.
Also, i dont know if the logic and reason still are valid during this experiences, as both logic and reason are a product of the humans mind, and nothing ensures that they will remain valid in other consciousness states besides the usual "waking sober" one. So, even if this experiences prove the "realness" of the basic principle of the morality, it still remains an open question if the reason and logic can prove it.
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