Chameleon  +  25201 Tue, 09 Mar 04 06:10 PM Here's my quandry: You have three people with knives. Persons A, B, and C. Person A attacks Person B (the reason may be important, but I'll save that for later) and Person B cannot defend himself. Is Person C at all obligated to defend Person B? The harder question is, "should they do it anyway?" There are two problems here: 1) What is the motivation of Person C to defend Person B and attack Person A based on the principle of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you"? 2) If Person C suceeds in killing or maiming Person A and prevents Person B from being injured, who has commited the more serious violation here? Person A or Person C? Chameleon Joined on Wed, Feb 18 2004 Full Member 174

	maj  +  25212 Tue, 09 Mar 04 10:27 PM All of them for having knives. It would be a lot wiser if person C saved person B before anything like that happened. maj Joined on Mon, Mar 31 2003 Senior Member 4,756

	Conus Lotus  +  25215 Wed, 10 Mar 04 10:09 AM Rommie, I think I may have put my finger on the source of the misunderstanding. Here is what I said, please note the addition in brackets (*socially*) which I should have included in the original. I do apologise for not having included it, I didn't think it necessary because I thought the second sentence made it clear. "In a civil society the opinions of the majority must be taken into account when trying to establish what is (*socially*) moral and what is not. Morality is subjective, you are quite right ... but that is why collective morality is so important when assessing what is appropriate for a society as a whole." My point is that distinctions can be made between public or group morality and private or individual morality, and so when considering issues of public morality one should take into account public opinion. I hope this makes sense. Conus Conus Lotus Joined on Wed, Jan 28 2004 Heavenly Lake Namtso, Tibet Full Member 202 When the hand of the ruler is light, the people do not contrive.

	peter  +  25226 Wed, 10 Mar 04 01:01 PM Ok I have a point to make regarding majority opinion. Here's another case: There are 2 men and a woman in a room who do not know each other that well. Man A is emotionally imbalanced and for one reason or another decides to attack and rape the woman. Acting morraly Man B intervenes and stops Man A. The underlying morals here have prevailed and the innocent woman has been spared. Now in another situation there are 10 men and 1 woman in a room. Most of the men are feeling imbalanced but 2 of them are not (Maybe their love lives are better) Seeing as there are 8 imbalanced men they all attack the woman and seeing as majority has ruled out they all get away with a gang rape. Now these men don't want to appear morraly wrong and so they all come to an agreement that infact it was her fault for being alone with 10 horny men and she shouldn't have worn that revealing dress. Ok so in the second case if you take 'majority rules' then she is an evil harlot with more evil clothes. Now while it may be that things like revealing clothes and for lack of a better word 'teasing' can be a problem, the underlying argument cannot be actually adressed since the majority has allready won the argument simply by being in greater number. And taking the case stated I'm sure we don't want to legalise gang rape. peter Joined on Fri, Feb 7 2003 Full Member 221 Spinning tales out of anti-matter and photons is an explosive buisness.

	peter  +  25233 Wed, 10 Mar 04 01:34 PM One more point on the concept of 'majority rules' in support of the opposing argument: Regarding my previous post I'd like to point out that I'm not saying that popular opinion has no place. For example: If a group of people all agree on a certain system of morals then it does etch it's way into the group psyche. In other words the abundance of belief in a particular system creates a whole new entity. Therefore the group is the entity. The point here is that new ideas occur inside the group. Allow me to explain. In an extremist Christian group their morals may create a whole array of prejudices however the by product of that is an environment in which the members enjoy a reality of care and fellowship. Therefore popular opinion has changed the dynamic of the argument. So there are now two morals. The internal moral conduct and the moral implications of the actions of any one member to any person in any other group. It gets tricky. The point I'm trying to make once again is that popular opinion DOES alter things insofar as it creates real, workable concepts. peter

	rommie  +  25236 Wed, 10 Mar 04 02:07 PM In a civil society the opinions of the majority must be taken into account when trying to establish what is (*socially*) moral and what is not. Morality is subjective, you are quite right ... but that is why collective morality is so important when assessing what is appropriate for a society as a whole. Thank you, Conus. I think I understand what you're getting at now. But it does raise one more question ... how can any of us actually KNOW what the majority of a given society believes? I can't even predict the beliefs of a single human being with accuracy. You see, no offense intended, but ... it is a very, very easy thing to do to assume that, whatever your beliefs, "most people" agree with you. And the thing is, even if you believe you're right, you might not be. How can you KNOW? This question is particularly relevant to statements like "Most people think XYZ is disgusting". I am currently not convinced that anyone can possibly have accurate information here. It isn't the sort of statistic that opinion polls gather, for instance. Rommie rommie Joined on Mon, Jan 26 2004 Earth orbit Regular Member 606

	maj  +  25257 Wed, 10 Mar 04 05:33 PM I know that some people may think my reasoning is totally wrong but I would say that morality exists in order to protect the so called "weaker" aspects of certain behaviours in an established society. That is why morality varies from one society to another. I would say that some people feel safer, maybe because they would otherwise be confused, if they don't have some clearly-cut patterns of behaviour. This is meant to be a point of view, not my personal opinion. maj

	rommie  +  25275 Wed, 10 Mar 04 08:31 PM Hi Conus, I think I'm starting to get it now. I think we're not speaking the same language as each other! I think we're using different terms to refer to the same thing, and the same terms to refer to different things, and hence (I at least) get awfully confused. Here's a for-instance. There is one concept which normally we would refer to by different terms: - In Rommie-speak, it's normally called "socially inappropriate" ... and sometimes abbreviated to just "inappropriate" - In Conus-speak, the same thing is called "socially immoral" ... and sometime abbreviated to just "immoral". You got me thinking when you said: I think I may have put my finger on the source of the misunderstanding. Here is what I said, please note the addition in brackets (*socially*) which I should have included in the original. I do apologise for not having included it, I didn't think it necessary because I thought the second sentence made it clear. If you omit the word "socially", I misunderstand you completely, and possibly also you I. So, thinking back to Maj's bikini example... In Rommie-speak, I would refer to Maj's wearing her bikini in that part of America she visited as "socially inappropriate", but I would NOT call it immoral. In Conus-speak, you would call that "socially immoral", and you might even call it "immoral" sometimes, as an abbreviation of that phrase. Am I close? Am I getting there? Hi Maj, Nice post. I don't understand though when you say: the so called "weaker" aspects of certain behaviours. Do you mean people who are unable to protect themselves? Rommie rommie Abbreviations

	Conus Lotus  +  25299 Thu, 11 Mar 04 12:04 AM Good question Peter. I would guess that the smaller the sampling of opinion, the higher the likelyhood of (how should I put this?) anomalies. If the actions of those men were judged by a jury of, say, 140 million people would the result be different do you think? Conus Lotus