Justus For All

I posted my results from the Taboo Test the other day, and I indicated in the comments to that post that I would like to explore the scenarios in detail and explain my answers and the reasons I gave them.

I would suggest that if you are interesting in taking this test, you do so now before you read the posts below as they may spoil the expirience.

As always, any comments on these answers would be welcome.

Moral Intuitions

These first questions are to establish a baseline.

1. A small boy is playing happily on a swing in a local playground when an older girl pushes him off and hurts him for no other reason than that she wants to play on the swing. Are her actions morally wrong?

Most people would agree that this is wrong, hurting another to get what you want is considered bad by most everyone.

Is it possible that an action is morally wrong solely for the reason that it harms the person undertaking the action? For example, might it be morally wrong to smoke just because it harms the smoker and for no other reason?

I answered yes on this as well, more on my thinking on this in a moment.

Is it possible something might be morally wrong for no other reason than that God determines that it is wrong? For example, imagine that God has declared that drinking water is wrong, and when she is asked why she replies honestly “for no other reason than that I say it is.”

I don’t subscribe to the theological arguement that “God is Good” represents a symetric property of equality. I ascribe to the idea that Goodness is a seperate attribute that God possesses. Therefore, I answered no on this statement. However, that does not necessarily mean that an omniscient being could understand moral implications better, and might decline to explain it’s reasoning.

Can an individual action be morally wrong if it is entirely private and no-one, not even the person doing the act, is harmed by it at all?

This statement is really the meat of this survey. I answered yes here. Not doing harm is, in my mind anyway, the beginning point, not the ending of morality. This would also relate to the idea of an action being immoral even if it harms only oneself. Perhaps I have a higher standard of morality, but the ultimate morality to me is choosing the best out of all possible choices. This is of course an unobtainable standard, so no one is perfectly moral (leaving aside possible divine beings anyway.) As a comfort to us fallible humans though, it is equally impossible to be perfectly immoral. No one can always make the worst choice either.

Do you think that morality comes from God or some other source outside of nature, society and human judgement?

I answered no here, as should be unsurprising given my previous explanations. If morality is defined as the best possible choice, than it is a thing into and of itself, so it would arrise from nature.

Now, as to the question which is somewhat implied, but not asked, of how knowledge of which choice is best, can be gained I remain uncertain. Human society gives us some good guidlines, but it falls down often as well. Reason can often provide useful answers, but certainly our knowedge and capabilities to think are imperfect and can never yeild perfect morality. As I have mentioned in other post, many people I admire seem to get excellent mileage on the question from communion with the divine, so that is something I do not mock, although I remain quite aware of the extreme immorality that has been practiced in the name of God, or Gods, historically.

For myself, I try to use reason combined with a respect for evolved societal norms to determine morality. Cognizant of the limitations of my own reason, I am hesitant to judge what society has evolved as norms to be immoral without long thought and a strong degree of certainty.