Poll: Logic or morality?
- Thread starter Mcupobob
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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.
This is very true. You should always protect your tool....Wait that IS your golden rule too, yes?octafish said:
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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.
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.Trolldor said:
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.
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.
Life is one big rhetorical question, the only right or wrong answers are to live and to die respectively.
Mcupobob said:
Jamboxdotcom said:
technoted said:
octafish said:
Sejs Cube said:
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.
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...
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...