(Untitled)

[daohsrinreln]

 Concepts, especially the building blocks of society, should be granted due process just as people should. Innocent until proven guilty on our morality, assuming that our morals can still function despite us, ourselves, being insecure about their justifications keeps society functioning

Comments

[satedbuffalo]

Haha, regularly = twice. Yr worse than Hume.

I think you're wrong on this. I say I think, because I'm not completely clear on what you're trying to express. I'm not sure how you're using the word concepts (I have a few different understandings of this term, none of which can really work as "the building blocks of society", except in the most general and un-helpful ways). I don't understand why you go to legal language to describe what you want to do with concepts, either: what does it mean to grant a concept due process? Is the underlying assumption here that we should not immediately question the concepts we have, but rather provide some moral/logical calculus in which they should be tested before they can be dismissed (I'm not sure this is distinct from questioning well)? Or are you saying that concepts should be accepted in the absence of falsifying data (i.e. this things I believe is so until experience proves otherwise?)?

I'm lost as to what you mean by "innocent until proven guilty on our morality". Are you saying that morality is a concept? Or are you talking about 'moral concepts' (which, to me at least, isn't a meaningful combination of words)?

But then you move to justification! I thought we were talking about justification.

I feel like the whole second paragraph is Mengzi's fault. Tell me what you mean by intuitive feelings and capacities.

Anyway, I how do the worst people fit into this (viz. senseless murderers, rapists)?

I feel like you are stuck in a bubble that you can't see.

[daohsrinreln]

Actually we have played three times (in mathematics that is enough for a pattern) and we have already elected to increase our game days, which means we've both accepted this as regular.

First, don't over-analyze a live journal posting or you will be disappointed.

Second, I will elaborate on what my thoughts were, though there was not a clear and solid logic to them at the time (if it appears there is, I added it just to make it look slightly better due to a failure during the transcription process). I think I started with the second part, since I was annoyed with a friend of mine, specifically, about nothing specific and wanted to justify those feelings. Which got me thinking generally about my friends, and their stances on morality (the particular friend is very fickle about his morality). Then to people I know more generally, and then to just trends in things I overhear.

Basically, I was feeling a lot of people choose to combat conventional morality, and then adopt arbitrary changes as counter-culture. Typically, it is psuedo-intelligent teenage rebellion against society, which got me thinking about why it bugs me. It bugs me because these kids (people) are picking on morals as an arbitrary, and potentially (or outright certainly) meaningless. From here they point to their actions, and their stances as better or more enlightened based on that reasoning alone -- and this is bs.

I don't mean to claim morals are an inborn capacity, which is what you seem to have inferred, my statement just as easily works with values so deeply encultured that they become reflexive. Really I was just saying conventional morality deserves more analysis than what a lot of people offer before trashing it. That what we feel is good can be good, even if it appears somewhat arbitrary.

Maybe presenting it as legal was sort of dumb, but I was not trying to be smart. I expanded it to "concepts" instead of just "morality" because I did not feel like considering the full implications of my statement, and was worried about not being fully inclusive.

In response to your individual points:
I hope it is more clear now. Forget I said concepts, I just meant morality -- which totally is a building block of our society (though when have I ever cared about being helpful?). Yeah, legal language was dumb. I guess I was associating concepts to ideas, and maybe the meme theory was running in the back of my head. I figured it would be more meaningful if ideas were considered to have lives of their own (which they totally do, anyway, without meme theory). I totally feel it is cool to question and replace morals, but they should be shown detrimental, or a better replacement should be provided. Basically I was assuming these people accepted morality at some point, or recognized other people do/did, and just wanted to say the status quo is not always bad just because it is the status quo.

Mentioned this junk already...onto second paragraph. Inclusion of the word capacity was Mengzi's fault, the general sentiment was not. I think it was more Western "people as intrinsically good" sort of idea. The "worst people" do not fit into this. They deviate from social morality too much, and if they are mentally well enough for reasoning they should be able to see how they differ, how their actions are wrong, in some way, even if they have reason to reject their actions. The fact that they can recognize themselves as social deviants should be enough there, though I honestly was not thinking or referring to them at all (which is why you brought them up you dick).

If I could see it I would probably leave it.

[satedbuffalo]

Oh. I seem to have inferred the wrong premise. Whoops.

Okay, yeah, those kids you're talking about sound awful. They should read some people who do similar things with better and more persuasive arguments, get frustrated, and grow up.