For moral relativists

[pvn]

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What does Jerry's agreement have to do with consistency? Seems like you want to use consistency as your way of saying any moral system that does not allow individual choice doesn't meet your criteria, but you don't want to come out and say that.

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If rules *imposed* upon a participant can be changed at the whim of other participants, the system is almost certainly doomed to be inconsistent.

EDIT: further, your phrasing indicates you think I went about this process in the opposite order that I actually did. I started with the preferences, then found systems that met those, rather than starting with a chosen system then trying to find preferences that would select it and select against others.

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Nobody changed the rules in my scenario.

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According to our town charter, this is a violation.

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Was the town charter chisled into the monolith?

[Kaj]

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What does Jerry's agreement have to do with consistency? Seems like you want to use consistency as your way of saying any moral system that does not allow individual choice doesn't meet your criteria, but you don't want to come out and say that.

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If rules *imposed* upon a participant can be changed at the whim of other participants, the system is almost certainly doomed to be inconsistent.

EDIT: further, your phrasing indicates you think I went about this process in the opposite order that I actually did. I started with the preferences, then found systems that met those, rather than starting with a chosen system then trying to find preferences that would select it and select against others.

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Nobody changed the rules in my scenario.

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According to our town charter, this is a violation.

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Was the town charter chisled into the monolith?

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The rules for deciding approving the town charter were (hypothetically).

I find your posts in this thread to be evidence that you are not going to consider any other subjective moral system, contrary to your OP.

[pvn]

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What does Jerry's agreement have to do with consistency? Seems like you want to use consistency as your way of saying any moral system that does not allow individual choice doesn't meet your criteria, but you don't want to come out and say that.

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If rules *imposed* upon a participant can be changed at the whim of other participants, the system is almost certainly doomed to be inconsistent.

EDIT: further, your phrasing indicates you think I went about this process in the opposite order that I actually did. I started with the preferences, then found systems that met those, rather than starting with a chosen system then trying to find preferences that would select it and select against others.

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Nobody changed the rules in my scenario.

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According to our town charter, this is a violation.

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Was the town charter chisled into the monolith?

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The rules for deciding approving the town charter were (hypothetically).

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So the rules allow situations where an individual is acceptably under the control of others without his consent? Mr. X is sitting at home one day under rule set A, then whammo, suddenly he is now subject to rule set B without any action on his part? I'm struggling to see how this can be consistent.

Stating up front that "you will be subject to rules that can change arbitrarily at some point in time" doesn't *eliminate* inconsistency, it simply
codifies it.

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I find your posts in this thread to be evidence that you are not going to consider any other subjective moral system, contrary to your OP.

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consider = support?

You may be right, perhaps there isn't any other system that meets my criteria. But I'm leaving the door open.

[Kaj]

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What does Jerry's agreement have to do with consistency? Seems like you want to use consistency as your way of saying any moral system that does not allow individual choice doesn't meet your criteria, but you don't want to come out and say that.

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If rules *imposed* upon a participant can be changed at the whim of other participants, the system is almost certainly doomed to be inconsistent.

EDIT: further, your phrasing indicates you think I went about this process in the opposite order that I actually did. I started with the preferences, then found systems that met those, rather than starting with a chosen system then trying to find preferences that would select it and select against others.

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Nobody changed the rules in my scenario.

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According to our town charter, this is a violation.

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Was the town charter chisled into the monolith?

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The rules for deciding approving the town charter were (hypothetically).

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So the rules allow situations where an individual is acceptably under the control of others without his consent? Mr. X is sitting at home one day under rule set A, then whammo, suddenly he is now subject to rule set B without any action on his part? I'm struggling to see how this can be consistent.

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You are being intentionally obtuse.

Living in my hypothetical community with shared land ownership requires that you consent to living according to the town charter. The rules for how the town charter is decided are clear -- based on an open forum and town vote. I'll avoid the details here about what limits the charter imposes or what voting majorities are required as they are ancillary. So there is no "whammo", there is a clearly defined process that Mr X knows full well about, consents to as part of his voluntary participation in our shared use society, and has a right and even expectation that he will participate and be heard.

You are proving that your biases make such a society unthinkable to you. I suggest you don't bother to engage in theoretical discussions on moral relativism if your mind is so closed as to only envision your one moral system as the only "good one" possible by your measures. Because it looks as if open discussion was never your real intent.

[bkholdem]

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I've made this point several times in several threads, and never gotten a straight answer. So now I'm making an OP.

I'm open to the idea of alternative moral systems. i've always said so. I will say that of course people have subjective personal preferences when it comes to morals. And once a set of subjective personal preferences has been selected, moral systems CAN be objectively evaluated against those preferences.

My personal preferences are for moral systems which are consistent over those which are inconsistent, and for systems which treat all people as equal (morally) over systems that have different classes of people. Do you agree or disagree with those subjective preferences?

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Are you saying that you think that all rules should apply equally to all people (given the same circumstances) or are you saying that all rules should apply equally to all people regardless of circumstances?

And I, as a moral relativist, still have not voted on the OP because it is still not clear to me.

.. I just looked up moral relativism and am now questioning whether or not 'moral pluralism' is a better way to describe me.

Anyways I am a bit dim and benefit from concrete examples.

[DougShrapnel]

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Pvn, I believe that there are certain advantages of a moral system that is quick at the cost of consistency. Not that I employ that strategy, but I'm not sure consistency is a clear favorite. A wrong action is often better than no action. Ultimately any moral system is judged by the benefits it provides to those that employ it.

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Could you give an example?

[/ QUOTE ] Yes, yet I think that it might change the discussion away from the main point, and on to specific logical issues with the example. A vast majority of people decide what morally is right vs what is wrong based of how they feel about it regardless of consistency issues. There is always an attempt to rationalize away the consistency issues when they are brought up. However most often these attempts are nothing more than making up stories ex post facto.

When discussions of good and bad arise, I must ask to who or what is something good for. Consistency, to whom or what is consistency good for? Does consistency provide enough benefit to out weigh the time that needs to be spent to figure out a consistent system. That question might depend on if a moral system can encompass all situations simply. I would say no, there are to many different situation that don't easily fit into any system. And in doing so you may miss some of the breadth and deep of life's experiences. The benefits of a consistent system may not overcome the time investment of working it out.

I might continue with possible benefits of a consistent system and show that the actual benefit over a system, that isn't necessarily consistent, may not be enough. Instead I will just ask to whom is the benefit or for what benefit does having consistent morals actualize? I realize that I might sound silly here, and that the benefits of a consistent system should be obvious. And the benefits of a system with consistency as it's goal is obviously better then a system with inconsistency as it's goal. But I'm trying to see why a consistency based system, wins out over an efficiency based system. If i can make a machine that produces 10,000 widgets in an hour yet has a defect rate of 1 in 100, why is that worse then a machine that produces 1000 widgets that never fails.

I assume the OP was about taxation. And against my better judgement I will briefly address that. Most people do not feel wrongly injured by taxation. Yet, do feel wrongly injured by "tax cheats". If someone feels wrongly injured by a mugger or grifter that donates his ill aquired gains to a "social good" they are being inconsistent, unless you consider intent. The moral grammer that is pervasive in the world clearly distinguishes actions based on intent. So there is some perceived intent difference between the two actions.

The previous may seem strange to you. But I can allow for that type of moral system simply because I use an ethical system that is based in reality, that can have only one goal. The goal is survival, when i say survival I don't mean simply existence I mean the quality of survival and continued existence. Quality is part and parcel with survival. This moral standard allows for competing moral systems to coexist arising from the personal preferences of the moral agent, provided the system has a survival benefit, and again quality of survival and/or survival.

PS In my post I said not a clear favorite. I should change that to clear winner, as consistency might just be a clear favorite.

[pvn]

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You are being intentionally obtuse.

Living in my hypothetical community with shared land ownership requires that you consent to living according to the town charter.

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Stop right there. I already asked if the person in question consented to the charter. You dismissed my question thusly:

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What does Jerry's agreement have to do with consistency?

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I've repeatedly mentioned that my characterization of this as inconsistent is dependent upon it being *imposed*. I've emphasized that word several times.

If he consents, consistency is possible.

Further, the moral system I have supported in the politics forum is entirely 100% compatible with what you're describing.

[pvn]

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Yes, yet I think that it might change the discussion away from the main point, and on to specific logical issues with the example. A vast majority of people decide what morally is right vs what is wrong based of how they feel about it regardless of consistency issues. There is always an attempt to rationalize away the consistency issues when they are brought up. However most often these attempts are nothing more than making up stories ex post facto.

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I agree with this. Most people haven't thought about what they support enough to even realize whether it is consistent or not.

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When discussions of good and bad arise, I must ask to who or what is something good for. Consistency, to whom or what is consistency good for?

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I don't know. Really, I don't care. The OP is about *personal* subjective preferences. If you don't like consistency, say so.

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Does consistency provide enough benefit to out weigh the time that needs to be spent to figure out a consistent system. That question might depend on if a moral system can encompass all situations simply.

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Actually, that question would depend on your personal subjective preferences.

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I would say no, there are to many different situation that don't easily fit into any system. And in doing so you may miss some of the breadth and deep of life's experiences. The benefits of a consistent system may not overcome the time investment of working it out.

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Of course, those benefits might overcome the time investment of "figuring it out" (whatever "it" is). So I don't see this as an argument for or against.

This reasoning seems circular to me.

Imagine if the question were "do you like green?"

And now imagine if you said "does liking green provide enough benefit to outweigh the time spent figuring out if you like green? I would say no, the benefits of liking green may not overcome the time investment of liking green (or the time investment of painting your house green)."

It's simple, do you like green or not? I am not trying to figure out who is going to benefit from liking green. I am not here to tell you that green is better than blue.

Do you like green? Yes or no.

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I might continue with possible benefits of a consistent system and show that the actual benefit over a system, that isn't necessarily consistent, may not be enough. Instead I will just ask to whom is the benefit or for what benefit does having consistent morals actualize? I realize that I might sound silly here, and that the benefits of a consistent system should be obvious. And the benefits of a system with consistency as it's goal is obviously better then a system with inconsistency as it's goal. But I'm trying to see why a consistency based system, wins out over an efficiency based system. If i can make a machine that produces 10,000 widgets in an hour yet has a defect rate of 1 in 100, why is that worse then a machine that produces 1000 widgets that never fails.

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What if you could have one that produces 10,000 an hour AND never fails? Given the choice between the two you posed, I agree with you, but you haven't shown any reasoning that correlates to our question of moral systems.

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I assume the OP was about taxation. And against my better judgement I will briefly address that. Most people do not feel wrongly injured by taxation. Yet, do feel wrongly injured by "tax cheats". If someone feels wrongly injured by a mugger or grifter that donates his ill aquired gains to a "social good" they are being inconsistent, unless you consider intent. The moral grammer that is pervasive in the world clearly distinguishes actions based on intent. So there is some perceived intent difference between the two actions.

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The OP wasn't about taxation specifically, though it's certainly related.

If person X doesn't feel wronged or injured by taxation, that's great. I think that person X should be free to pay taxes. That doesn't say anything about person X forcing person Y to also pay taxes, though. I like Coke better than Pepsi, does that personal subjective preference provide a justification for me to use force to prevent my neighbor from drinking Pepsi and forcing him to drink Coke?

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The previous may seem strange to you. But I can allow for that type of moral system simply because I use an ethical system that is based in reality, that can have only one goal. The goal is survival, when i say survival I don't mean simply existence I mean the quality of survival and continued existence. Quality is part and parcel with survival. This moral standard allows for competing moral systems to coexist arising from the personal preferences of the moral agent, provided the system has a survival benefit, and again quality of survival and/or survival.

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I don't see any conflict here. You like X, I like Y, we should both be able to enjoy our own preferences.

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PS In my post I said not a clear favorite. I should change that to clear winner, as consistency might just be a clear favorite.

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Why does there need to be a winner?

[Kaj]

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You are being intentionally obtuse.

Living in my hypothetical community with shared land ownership requires that you consent to living according to the town charter.

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Stop right there. I already asked if the person in question consented to the charter. You dismissed my question thusly:

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What does Jerry's agreement have to do with consistency?

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I've repeatedly mentioned that my characterization of this as inconsistent is dependent upon it being *imposed*. I've emphasized that word several times.

If he consents, consistency is possible.

Further, the moral system I have supported in the politics forum is entirely 100% compatible with what you're describing.

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I said participation in this society was voluntary. Jerry knows about the charter as he is a member of this society. He may not agree with every provision, nor his agreement on every provision required for the society's "rules" to be consistently decided upon and applied. By making this the central issue, you are advocating only one moral system: one in which every member of the voluntary society is free from any action by the other members if he chooses. This is not an issue of "consistency".

It's like: Hey my system is the only one consistent. Why? Because I define consistency as a moral system identical to mine.

[DougShrapnel]

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Yes, yet I think that it might change the discussion away from the main point, and on to specific logical issues with the example. A vast majority of people decide what morally is right vs what is wrong based of how they feel about it regardless of consistency issues. There is always an attempt to rationalize away the consistency issues when they are brought up. However most often these attempts are nothing more than making up stories ex post facto.

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I agree with this. Most people haven't thought about what they support enough to even realize whether it is consistent or not.


[/ QUOTE ] If you agree with this, and you also agree that most people get along well enough in life in spite of it then you understand my point. It is a successful strategy. I will gladly address the rest of your post if you can rebut it. I will also address the rest of your post for any reason you choose.