I believe the official definition is "not having a nintendo wii"

You continue to conflate concepts.

Imagine that a completely insane person, who has no concept of right or wrong, and doesn't even know who he is or where he is, is wandering the streets killing people. We can know this is detrimental to society without using any moral codes. What he is doing is not "right" or "wrong" morally by any moral code known to man, since all moral codes require knowledge and choice of one's own actions. It's simply harmful to society, even though he is not responsible for his actions. We remove him from society to protect society, not to punish him or because we've made some moral judgment of him.

Pushing an old person out to sea on an iceflow is not a moral decision. It's a cognitive (and practical) decision made by a society that cannot support this non-productive member. He has now become a liability and is detrimental to the survival of the group. The cognitive thought process that leads the group to decide this action is not one based on moral judgments.

Perhaps if the topic confuses you because we are using humans as the example, look back a bit to monkeys. Do they have moral codes? No. Yet they know exactly what to do when one of their members becomes a detriment to the group. This is the process i refer to that is absent of morality.

You may use your system of morality to guide your thought process in making these decisions, but that does not mean that it is a necessary component, or that others must do the same.


Edit: I'm off to sleep. Have a good evening and i look forward to chatting again soon.

Why are people like this dealt with less severely than people with knowledge of their actions? It's precisely because the punishments we observe have moral as well as practical considerations. If as you claim there were no morality involved then sane and insane miscreants would be treated the same, but we observe that they are not.

Humans make practical decisions but we can observe that they apply a concept of punishment based on morality in addition to just defensively protecting themselves from miscreants and pushing the elderly out on ice floes.

Nor do they have vengeance or punishment.

I maintain that humans developed morality (I've told you how I'm using this word - if you have your own word for the process by which we decide what actions are detrimental insert it instead) as an extension of this mammalian process.

When you come back I'd appreciate it if you'd answer some of my questions you've ignored, most importantly how you define morality, why "Acting to the detriment of society is wrong" isn't a valid moral code, and what is the difference between applying that code and the behavior you're referring to. If you continue to ignore these issues I don't see how we can have a productive discussion.

The normal kind of obligation? You know, the kind of obligation that exists in the real world and not only in ridiculous counterarguments by ACists.

I didn't really say you would be ostracized, although that is another possibility. In the case of you being ostracized because you don't pay taxes and keep all your wealth in flawless diamonds that you keep on your person at all times, I guess having all or some of the profits (or more than the profits. I dunno.) from the hypothetical deal confiscated, would be one way to prevent people from dealing with you.

What I said was that an option is to stop respecting your property rights - quite reasonable as a reaction to you having stopped to respect the community's right to a precentage of your wealth, to phrase it opposite of what AlexM did above. This would mean I would not have to pay anyone to follow you around all day, because whenever you tried to use your diamonds the person you tried to sell them to could just pocket them, since you no longer legitimately own them, and noone will help you retrieve them. Now the diamonds are in the pockets of someone who does not refuse to pay taxes, and all is well.

Alex: If you keep all your wealth in gold and you keep all your wealth on your person at all times, you are so poor that it's ok; you don't have to pay.

Maxtower: I agree that taxes paid to the state are not used for good, and you have no moral obligation to pay them. Can a tax evader get trial by jury? I think someone should refuse to pay his taxes, pay more than he was supposed to pay in taxes to some charity that the jury will agree is good, and claim that while he wants to contribute to the common good, he can not in good conscience pay for the war in Iraq. That would be pretty cool and it seems he would have a good shot at hanging the jury. Of course, he would also risk paying more than double taxes

Theres no jury trial with the IRS. You simply owe. Further than that, you are guilty until proven innocent. If they say you owe $10,000, you have to show how you don't not the other way around. Its completely corrupt. I don't know how much of tax revenues go to welfare, but there are some tent cities in New Orleans that would like to know as well.

So... why have you ever come back?

Ok, they can have .0001%. Glad I satisfied their "right".

Bad things happen when individuals violate "community's" rights.

I keep all of my vast wealth in gold, and keep nothing but a few numbers on myself at all times.

It's not hypothetical. It's what's next:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECache

Excuse me, but the quote I was responding to was this:
If this is a correct statement, then you are obliged to spend every last cent on starving Africans (or the like). If you are not obliged to spend every last cent on starving Africans, then the above quote cannot be correct!

Can you give me an example? What is something that you are obliged to do that you dont have to do? What is a moral obligation you have that, if you dont do it, its ok?

Seriously, you have to realize that the word OBLIGATION implies that you actually have to do it, right? Stop saying you are morally obliged to help people, and just say it would be nice if you did, if thats what you meant.

obligation
1. something by which a person is bound or obliged to do certain things, and which arises out of a sense of duty or results from custom, law, etc.
2. something that is done or is to be done for such reasons: to fulfill one's obligations.
3. a binding promise, contract, sense of duty, etc.

obligatory
1. required as a matter of obligation; mandatory: A reply is desirable but not obligatory.
2. incumbent or compulsory (usually fol. by on or upon): duties obligatory on all.
3. imposing moral or legal obligation; binding: an obligatory promise.

I'm not seeing "but hey if you dont feel like it or are currently busy" in there anywhere.

Depends how you read "as far as they can afford it". If I told you that I try to save and put some money aside, as far as I can afford it - would you think it meant that I slept off the streets only the nights it was so cold I would freeze to death otherwise, and if I ate anything it would be stuff I found in trash cans and maybe I'd go all out and make myself some porridge once a month? Or do you only apply that malicious interpretation when someone says they try to help the poor, as far as they can afford it?

The only reasonable interpretation of "as far as you can afford it" in this context is "as far as it can be reasonably expected of you given your circumstances".

By "in the real world" you mean "when it's convenient for me and magically disappears when it's inconvenient"?

I never claimed any such thing. I only pointed out that it is not a necessary component. Just because the majority of people use a code of morality to modulate their decision process regarding detrimental behavior does not make it an equivalent, as you have tried to argue, or even a required modulator.



Same as above.



Same as above.



Same as above.


Those questions are irrelevant to the discussion. It does not matter how one defines morality. The fact is that it is not a necessary component of the cognitive decision process that humans employ to determine detrimental behavior. If you continue to insist that it is, then you must believe that all animals have codes of morality.

Apparently trying to make any kind of well-defined statement about moral obligation is now a "malicious interpretation." ANYONE in the first world can "afford to help," as long as they are not starving and have anything of value that can be hocked to help the starving African children. When you attempt to change the context to some sort colloquial phrase about saving money, you're no longer defining a moral position with which to oblige your fellow citizens to cough up the product of their labor.

Given what circumstances? Does the fact that you want buy a motor home to keep up with the neighbors really bad count? The only scale of necessity appearing in the original statement about moral obligation is the people who are starving. Any standard of 1st world life is equally rich beyond the wildest dreams of little starving Umbutu.

Do you expect me to draw a specific line and say this here on the one side of the line is objectively morally acceptable, while this here on the other side is objectively morally abhorrent? Come on. The line is already drawn. You are obligated to help as much as it can be reasonably expected of you given your circumstances. That is the line. You claim that different people will think different levels of obligation are reasonable? Well, then different people think different levels of obligation are reasonable. It should hardly be a shock. Apparently you think zero obligation is a reasonable line. That is a valid opinion, but it is not objectively superior to another line.

You have an obligation to do nothing if you don't want to isn't an obligation. It's a suggestion which is fine. I think it'd be nice if everyone gave to charity I certainly do but I don't think people have an obligation to do so. Apparently neither do you.

I do. If you don't want to "follow the suggestion" of giving to charity, I'm not going to throw you in jail or anything, but I will take the disputed money and give it to charity for you.

So is it valid for people to think zero is appropriate or isn't it valid?

Just one more time for the record and I'm done. Mammals exhibit this behavior you're talking about of exiling membes detrimental to the group. They also to one degree or another have a preference to act to benefit the group (this is good for the species too, ducy). Humans, having gained the ability of cognitive thought, have extended these mechanisms. Instead of instinctively knowing what's detrimental they can use logic and analogy and the rest to decide. I refer to this thought process as morality, and you haven't given me any reason I shouldn't use this word this way, or that morality is better defined as something else.

But our extension goes farther than that. Punishment as a deterrent is useful against humans and not against other animals. You can't "make an example" out of, say, a dog, because the other dogs won't understand it. Now you don't have to wait until detrimental behaviors crop up to deal with them, you can make it known in advance that they'll be dealt with. The desire for punishment or vengeance comes in here too.

Then there's the desire to not act detrimentally in the first place, which also benefits the species. Itdoesn't override all other considerations as limitless counterexamples would show, but someone who doesn't have this preference to any degree is a sociopath. The logical process by which we figure out what's detrimental helps guide people's behavior by this mechanism.

I guess all of these extensions (every ability humans have in this area that relies on cognition) come under the heading of morality, which is to the behavior you're talking about, as human language is to mammal communication. I see no reason not to continue referring to the thought process regarding beneficial and detrimental actions as "morality" unless you can convince me that morality refers to something else, that that thought process has a better name and is excluded from what's referred to as morality, and that "Acting detrimentally is wrong" isn't just a moral code.

ACists?

Anarchocapitalists. Its a synonym for nutjobs.

Utopian nutjobs.

Utopian nutjobs that are anti poor children getting a hot meal

just nutjobs