Poll: Logic or morality?

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Alloflifedecays

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May 28, 2008
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I don't think the two things are incompatible. However, I think that morality largely comes from behaviours which have, through natural selection, been bred into us in order to create the most harmonious society possible, whereas logic is a higher brain function which requires greater active engagement. In short, I try and use both; they're good for different things.
 

x EvilErmine x

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Apr 5, 2010
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octafish said:
The golden rule is inherently logical, and is the basis of most moral behaviour.
This is very true. You should always protect your tool....Wait that IS your golden rule too, yes? :eek:)
 

Aetherius

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Feb 10, 2011
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Pure logic has no place for happiness, sadness, anger, peacefulness or any other silly emotion. A world of Pure logic would be a world devoid of humanity, only the robots would survive in such a world. On the other hand, a world dictated purely by Morality wouldn't work either, pure morality would eventually lead to our self destruction, either through the ignoring of problems for the sake of others or a lack of defences leaving us dead in the wake of a natural disaster, or alien invasion. We should strike a balance between the two so that humanity doesn't just survive, but prospers as well.
 

Mcupobob

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Jun 29, 2009
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Trolldor said:
Mcupobob said:
So I was watching Irobot cause I didn't have much else to do and I was thinking how Vicky was a machine designed for absolute cold hard logic and it was based around the three laws. The doctor who built sunny designed him for Superior morality what is viewed right and wrong. Sunny did what he thought was right and what he was taught what was right. Vicky did what would be the logically answer. So escapist what would you rather have a world of morality where we do what we think is right or a world where we go by whats more safe and efficient?
Like always people make the idiotic assumption that the two are seperate.

Oh, and absolute morality is one of the most damaging, dangerous and reprehensible ideas to have ever been introduced.
Hey man, calling me an idiot isn't nice. To be fair I was really just wanted to talk about the differences between Vicky's logic and morality and Sunny's in Irobot. Vicky's plan was to insure human survival by elimnating our freedoms and keeping us under lock and key. It could have been a better society where morals and values don't get in the way of progress or goals but like sunny said "It just seemed heartless" I was asking which philosophy to the people agree with but everyone else went off on a different tangent so whatever. Sometimes you say stupid things or don't write a thought out the right way. Win some lose some. Any was hope that cleared it up.
 

zehydra

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Oct 25, 2009
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randomrob said:
GOOD Morality is dictated by logic. The two are very interlinked in Philosophy.
fixed that for ya

edit: original post was a shift fail -_-
 

KingGolem

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Jun 16, 2009
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I've always considered making decisions based on morality to be a sign of weakness of character. Logic is how one makes decisions. I think morals were invented to turn the ignorant cavemen who can't handle logic into decent human beings, so if you have a good grip on logic, morals will just hold you back. That's how I see it, anyway.
 

Azure Knight-Zeo

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Jun 7, 2010
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Here's the thing, you can't follow one path for all situations. If you follow morality all the time you're bound to make some big mistakes, often times you may find yourself in a situation that will be difficult (if not impossible) to get out of without a fatality. If you follow logic you will find yourself alone and unloved, also logic is a fairly predictable thing that can be confused using illogical actions.

Life is one big rhetorical question, the only right or wrong answers are to live and to die respectively.
 

CrystalShadow

don't upset the insane catgirl
Apr 11, 2009
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Mcupobob said:
So I was watching Irobot cause I didn't have much else to do and I was thinking how Vicky was a machine designed for absolute cold hard logic and it was based around the three laws. The doctor who built sunny designed him for Superior morality what is viewed right and wrong. Sunny did what he thought was right and what he was taught what was right. Vicky did what would be the logically answer. So escapist what would you rather have a world of morality where we do what we think is right or a world where we go by whats more safe and efficient?
Jamboxdotcom said:
Ideally they should both be the same. My personal moral code, even as influenced by my Christian upbringing, is driven by my logic. I'm sure i'll get flamed by someone for saying that, but i really don't think the two have to be mutually exclusive. That being said, however, i suppose i'd have to pick logic, as i feel that a strictly logical course would ultimately prove to be highly moral.
technoted said:
Logic, in my opinion morals are bad, it's a long explanation as to why and pretty much it goes against nature and morals can be wrong or right as seen through different eyes so I'm not going to babble on for ages about why.
octafish said:
The golden rule is inherently logical, and is the basis of most moral behaviour.
Sejs Cube said:
Logic, simply because logic can lead *to* morality given sufficient thought, while the inverse is not necessarily true.

Really, morals are just a cultural set of pro-social memes anyway, and it's pretty easy to see how pro-social behavior benefits the individual who is themselves a member of said society.

Ain't nothin' mystical about it.

I could go on quoting dozens of other people in this thread, but it'd really be a waste of time.

The opinions expressed above, and dozens of others conflate logic with rationality.

"The golden rule is inherently logical"?

Nothing can be inherently logical, because logic cannot prove itself true.

Logic is a useful tool, but as various paradoxes to do with inductive and deductive reasoning, as well as Godel's incompleteness theorem, and even Turing's computability tests all show either directly, or indirectly, that there is no such thing as an inherently logical statement, because the starting conditions, axioms, or whatever else any logical statement are built on cannot themselves be proven to be logical when you analyse the chain of logic in it's entirety.

Sure, a logical statement can be built from other logical statements, but going backwards, eventually you will hit something which isn't logical, it's just some arbitrary statement.

Thus, defining logic as somehow less arbitrary than morality is misguided on a lot of levels.
(Not to mention implying that morality isn't logical, which is also silly.)

For that matter, the idea that logic, in isolation, can even satisfactorily answer any question is a really dubious claim, because, without an arbitrary starting premise of some kind, logic can't actually be used to answer anything at all.

ALL logical sequence of statements must enevitably begin with one or more statements like the following:

Assume X is true. (Or assume X is false. - It doesn't matter, the key to the statement is the assume bit.)

You can create a statement like this for instance:

X is true.
Y is X

Therefore Y is X.
And Y is true

Which is logical, and shows that Y is true, and the same as X.

But... Notice the first statement is X is true?

Why is X true? What's that derived from? Taken in isolation, that's a completely arbitrary statement...
And thus you see where logic breaks apart.

Rationality on the other hand, does not automatically presume the answer to any problem needs to be a logical one. Merely that you use the most effective tool available to solve any given problem.
If the most effective tool happens to be an emotional gut reaction, that doesn't mean you're not being rational. It just means such a gut reaction is more useful than trying to deduce something logically.
 

TwistedEllipses

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Nov 18, 2008
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The problem is, if you ignore the current moral code, you have to create your own based on logic and logic can be applied in many different way.

E.g. The logical objection to incest is inbreeding and lack of genetic diversity, but if you have a same-sex relationship with your cousin, what are the grounds of objection? However, most of us (myself included) would be disgusted and object to this, but not be able to provide a better explanation than morality...
 

Trolldor

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Jan 20, 2011
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Mcupobob said:
Trolldor said:
Mcupobob said:
So I was watching Irobot cause I didn't have much else to do and I was thinking how Vicky was a machine designed for absolute cold hard logic and it was based around the three laws. The doctor who built sunny designed him for Superior morality what is viewed right and wrong. Sunny did what he thought was right and what he was taught what was right. Vicky did what would be the logically answer. So escapist what would you rather have a world of morality where we do what we think is right or a world where we go by whats more safe and efficient?
Like always people make the idiotic assumption that the two are seperate.

Oh, and absolute morality is one of the most damaging, dangerous and reprehensible ideas to have ever been introduced.
Hey man, calling me an idiot isn't nice. To be fair I was really just wanted to talk about the differences between Vicky's logic and morality and Sunny's in Irobot. Vicky's plan was to insure human survival by elimnating our freedoms and keeping us under lock and key. It could have been a better society where morals and values don't get in the way of progress or goals but like sunny said "It just seemed heartless" I was asking which philosophy to the people agree with but everyone else went off on a different tangent so whatever. Sometimes you say stupid things or don't write a thought out the right way. Win some lose some. Any was hope that cleared it up.

I didn't call you an idiot. I said the assumption that the two are seperate was idiotic.
I know most people on the internet have a hide time understanding the difference, but there is quite a substantial one.