Taboos

[SoulQuest1970]

Ah, but the question put itself forward as someone who takes something because they want to. How can an action be immoral if the intentions are not immoral?

Why should the boy have the swing? Did he pay for its use? Did he have any more right to use the swing than the girl? Because he got there first? Why should the girl's right to the swing be overwritten by the boy's right to the swing? He's just as morally culpable by staying on the swing as she is for taking it off him.

I had to say no, because they cancel each other out.

Ahhh... but the variables are important. First the boy was a younger child and the girl older. Also, the girl used physical violence to gain the swing. She could have asked if she could have her turn, or made a deal to push his swing for him if he would push the swing for her. If children are allowed to bully thier way into what they want, they become adults that do the same thing. Is it morally wrong if someone jumps in your rental car and shoves you out even though you had it first? The car isn't yours... you are just using it.

[Worm of Despite]

Results

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.00.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.00.

Your Universalising Factor is: -1.


My results are identical to Lord Foul's. Should I be giving that some thought?

Ha ha! Perhaps! To tell the truth, I hesitated on the cat-eating thing. It asked me, and I paraphrase, if I would be "bothered" by seeing a family eating roadkill. Personally, if I walked into my friend Seth's house and saw his family gathered round the dead cat, I would have more than a few question marks resounding about my head, heh. But, in terms of is it wrong? In my book, no.

[dANdeLION]

Taboo - The Results

Results

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.57.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.40.

Your Universalising Factor is: 0.40.

What do these results mean?

Are you thinking straight about morality?

There was no inconsistency in the way that you responded to the questions in this activity. It is likely that you think that what makes any of these actions morally problematic has to do with God or some other source of morality external to nature, society and human judgement. You indicated that an act can be wrong even if it is entirely private and no one, not even the person doing the act, is harmed by it. There is nothing contradictory then in a claim that the actions depicted in these scenarios are morally problematic. However, there is a tension in your responses in that you indicated that you do see harm in at least some of the activities depicted here. Given that the actions described in these scenarios are private and it was specified as clearly as possible that they didn't involve harm, it isn't clear where you think the harm might lie.

Okay, I'll make it clear. The test asked me if there was any harm done, and I said yes, even though there was no apparent harm done. Well, I believe that some things done harm the doer, regardless of what it looks like on the outside. A person practicing perverse behavior on their own, with nobody watching, is still going down a path that harms them, even if nobody, including themselves, ever knows.

[I'm Murrin]

Ha ha! Perhaps! To tell the truth, I hesitated on the cat-eating thing. It asked me, and I paraphrase, if I would be "bothered" by seeing a family eating roadkill. Personally, if I walked into my friend Seth's house and saw his family gathered round the dead cat, I would have more than a few question marks resounding about my head, heh. But, in terms of is it wrong? In my book, no.

I was unsure of that question too - dead cat, yeah, whatever, but it was the fact it asked specifically about dead cats run over by cars that made it harder - who wants tire-tracks on their food?

[dANdeLION]

I think if you eat your pet cat, the moral repercussions could be.....catastrophic.

[Worm of Despite]

Recently, I had an interesting moral discussion with a random person:

HackerXANT: if you cut a tree down but it's actually a person but you thought it was a tree in your mind is it wrong
IACIamcute: of course not
IACIamcute: thats a product of neurosis and insanity
HackerXANT: but the person is hacked to bits
HackerXANT: i mean my god
HackerXANT: okay nevermind
HackerXANT: well where do i store him
IACIamcute: well if you have a woodchipper
IACIamcute: you can cut him up into little chunks
IACIamcute: then store it and later use it as bait for fishing
IACIamcute: no one will suspect a thing
HackerXANT: but is that morally right? i mean--well--i can't quite find the words....should i feel guilt?
IACIamcute: you're just returning him to nature
IACIamcute: its perfectly moral
HackerXANT: ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh
IACIamcute: foodchain, you see?
HackerXANT: thanks i feel a lot better
IACIamcute: anytime

[matrixman]

The dead pet cat scenario made me uneasy too. I would feel a "little bothered" watching a family eat its former pet, which means that, according to the test, some deep part of me must feel it's a morally questionable act. Otherwise, why should it bother me in the slightest? But I can't deny that it does.

My unease probably stems from my feeling that loving pets should receive better dignity than to be just eaten by their owners. But right there I'm obviously making a value judgment: I may feel it's undignified to eat my dead pet cat for supper, but other people and cultures might feel it's a perfectly fine way to honour their pets. So ultimately I would say there is nothing inherently wrong with eating one's dead pets, even though personally I would hesitate to do such a thing. But that must mean again that some part of me feels that it is indeed inherently wrong. I could go in circles here.

BTW, there was a program on The Learning Channel (that I, aarrgh, unfortunately missed) that explored the hypothesis that people who practice cruelty to animals are more likely to turn into psychopaths. Hopefully the show will air again soon. Of course, my feeling is that any person who deliberately tortures an animal is already a nutcase. How's that for a value judgment?

[duchess of malfi]

I felt uncomfortable with both the cat and the chicken. The bottom line is that neither animal was harmed by the people who used them in those two ways...but both still made me squirm. Just a personal thing.

A guy I work does eat road kill. He lives way out in the country and for awhile he was averaging hitting a deer a month. One of the deer he hit lay in the road having convulsions for a long time after the accident and it made him sick. So he started carrying a big knife in his trunk to administer a mercy kill if needed. From there his thoughts went to -- "That's an awful lot of meat the cops are throwing into the ditch..." So he started carrying tarps as well...

And perhaps its because I've worked in hospitals all of my adult life...but the chicken things just doesn't seem very hygenic. I hope the guy wore protection...I'm not sure if you could contract salmonella that way, but I know on the news and what have you they always emphasize how careful you have to be with cooking raw poultry in your kitchen so as to avoid infection.

[Avatar]

Interesting to see that we got the same score. In terms of this though:

So ultimately I would say there is nothing inherently wrong with eating one's dead pets, even though personally I would hesitate to do such a thing. But that must mean again that some part of me feels that it is indeed inherently wrong. I could go in circles here.

I think that it's perfectly possible for somebody to hesitate, or even refuse, to do something that has nothing inherently wrong with it. Think of it as a matter of taste. There's nothing wrong with eating banana's with tomato soup, but I wouldn't do it. Just because I wouldn't do it, doesn't mean there may be something inherently wrong with it, just that it's not to my taste.

I certianly agree with both Duchess and SoulQuest about the example with the kids though. The variables are often all important. And as MM says, the boy wasn't using force to take or keep the swing in the first place.

--Avatar

[Damelon]

Results


Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.43.


Your Interference Factor is: 0.00.


Your Universalising Factor is: 0.40.


What do these results mean?


Are you thinking straight about morality?

There was no inconsistency in the way that you responded to the questions in this activity. You did not evaluate the actions depicted in these scenarios to be across the board wrong. And anyway you indicated that an action can be wrong even if it is entirely private and no one, not even the person doing the act, is harmed by it. However, there is a tension in your responses in that you indicated that you do see harm in at least some of the activities depicted here. Given that the actions described in these scenarios are private and it was specified as clearly as possible that they didn't involve harm, it isn't clear where you think the harm might lie.

I had no problem with the swing question. Since they are children, they can't be expected to judge the concequences of their actions as clearly as an adult would.

The cat bothered me in the sense that it's cold-blooded. Obviously they had little feelings for the cat in the first place if they were willing to consume it. It is at its base disrespectful and a form of cruelty to the animal, even though the animal can no longer feel it. Cruelty to animals has long been recognized as a predictor of cruelty to humans. What if they heard that people tasted good, and they decided to take that form of "road kill" and eat it? Would that be allright?

It's slightly different with the chicken, but the end result similar to the cat. Was the chicken killed with the object of providing sexual satisfaction to the person? If so, that to me is a wrong reason to kill an animal. Far more likely it was killed with the object of providing a different form of sustenance, in which it's still wrong to use it for sexual gratification since it's disrespectful to the animal.

Is that a reason to punish them? No, but I certainly wouldn't want to knowingly associate with them.

[duchess of malfi]

Actually, in some cultures, cannibalism has been viewed as perfectly OK. Doesn't mean that I would be willing to be a dinner guest for such a meal though.

[Avatar]

To be honest, I don't have much problem with cannibalism either. Of course, with the proviso that the person isn't killed for the sole purpose of providing food for you.

If they died of natural causes, and especially in situations where it's eat or die, or the person consented to it before hand, I don't think that there is anything wrong with it.

In a survival situation, if I was dead, I'd be quite happy if my otherwise useless corpse could save the lives of my companions. I think of it as protein donation.

The situation about the cat was clearly not an incidence of cruelty to animals. The cat was dead already. The only difference between eating that and a deer, or a beef-steak, is psychological. Being dead, I doubt it bothered the cat at all.

It may offend my sense of "taste", but for taste, as we all know, there is no accounting.

--A

[Damelon]

Remind me to ask you, Avatar, what's in the soup pot when I come over for dinner.

In a base darwinian sense there's nothing wrong with cutting up kitty for soup, and kitty in a pinch would likely return the favor if he found us as road kill, but that's the difference, kitty doesn't have the higher reasoning to know better than to eat ones companion for dinner. I for one, think it's disrespectful.

[Avatar]

You've nothing to worry about, I haven't made a meal of anyones remains yet.

In a base darwinian sense there's nothing wrong with cutting up kitty for soup, and kitty in a pinch would likely return the favor if he found us as road kill...

Exactly. And although I understand your view of it as disrespectful, at least in our cultural viewpoint, that doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with it. It is in exactly that type of "darwinian" way that I tend to look at things.

Interesting to note though, that certain cultures feel differently about the issue. In South Africa, for example, the Griqua people once believed that by consuming a part of the remains of a loved one, they become part of you, and would always be with you.

An Englishman who spent some years living with them was so taken by the idea, that he had his favourite polo pony cooked upon its demise, and ate a part of it for exactly that reason: All consuming love and respect. (Edit: I assure you no pun was intended there.)

And that is why morality is subjective. It all depends on the cultural mores of any given person. To prevent a Griqua from consuming part of a dead loved one, would have been a grievious affront to his love for that person. Even respect can mean different things to different people.

--Avatar

[Nathan]

Especially if the both had an equal opportunity to get there.

There is no difference between this and a child finding a coin on the ground. If a bigger kid smacks the smaller one to get the coin, is that all right? Is he inflicting harm to take what the other has, or is he just excercising his own right to dominance by virtue of his strength?

Both are equally "wrong". The original child has no right to the coin either, other than the fact that he already possess it. Is it wrong for him to pick up the coin? Perhaps. But a second child hitting him for it doesn't make it "better".

It all seems very arbitrary to me.

Does someone possess something just because they got to it first? Shouldn't they have to earn possession of the coin? Shouldn't it go to whoever needs it more?

"I got there first" is no more of a reason to claim ownership than "I'm bigger than you"

[Kymbierlee]

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.20.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.00.

Your Universalising Factor is: 0.25.

What do these results mean?

Are you thinking straight about morality?

You see very little wrong in the actions depicted in these scenarios. However, to the extent that you do, your responses are a little puzzling. You don't think an action can be morally wrong if it is entirely private and no one, not even the person doing the act, is harmed by it. It at least seems that the actions described in these scenarios are private like this and it was specified as clearly as possible that they didn't involve harm. Yet your responses indicate that you do see some minimal harm in the activities depicted here, and presumably - though not necessarily - this is where you think the moral problems lie. The trouble is that you were asked to judge the scenarios as described, not as you think they would have turned out in the real world. And given how they were described, it isn't clear what form such harms could take. More about this below...

I had a problem with the brother/sister thing- not in the original scenario, because it did mention that pregnancy could not occur. In the subsequent question, though, the one where brother/sister sex was a cultural norm, it did not address the pregnancy issue, and I would have to assume that some pregnancies would occur in that situation which would lead to birth defects, mental retardation, and other harmful effects. I had to say in that instance it is wrong, unless no pregnancies could possibly occur ever. Some of the stuff was just gross, but I could not justify calling it morally wrong just because I would find it distasteful to do it.

[Avatar]

Actually, as far as I recall, I think it did say a cultural norm when pregnancy couldn't result. At least, I read it that way. Agree that you can't condemn something on a moral basis just because it's distasteful to you.

Nathan-- Similar example, but with a more personal bias: You're walking down the high street, and find a fiver on the ground. Suddenly, some guy with twice your agression level taps you on the shoulder, punches you in the face and removes the fiver from your twitching fingers. Is that all right?

--Avatar

[Furls Fire]

*backs out of this thread quietly...shuddering*

[Variol Farseer]

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.43.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.00.

Your Universalising Factor is: 1.00.

The scoring program, of course, accused me of inconsistency. I consider my answers as consistent as the multiple-choice format allows, and if nobody minds, I feel like gassing about it for a bit:

1. To push little kids off swings and injure them is wrong in itself; the question of who ought to have the use of the swing is, as far as I'm concerned, a side issue. And while I might not hold the girl fully responsible in a moral sense, she probably needs to be held to account to help her understand that this is not acceptable behaviour. Mind you, we're not told how much older the girl is; if she's 10 or 11 or somewhere along there, she should bally well know better.

2. I answered 'yes' to this one. A year ago I would have answered 'no', but C.S. Lewis changed my mind. He uses the analogy of a flotilla of ships:

The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if the ships do not collide and get in one another's way; and, secondly, if each ship is seaworthy and has her engines in good order. As a matter of fact, you cannot have either of these two things without the other. . . . What is the good of telling the ships how to steer to avoid collisions if, in fact, they are such crazy old tubs that they cannot be steered at all?

I myself have a number of bad habits which do not in themselves harm anyone else, but because they harm me, they weaken my ability to do right by other people. And because each time I succumb to a bad habit I have had a failure of willpower, I develop the habit of being weak-willed, which makes me less able to resist the impulse to do things that really do harm other people directly. By sheer grace I have done a lot less harm than I might have done, but I know people who have done enormous damage to others simply because they have not cultivated the habit of self-control.

3. I answered 'no': an action cannot be wrong just because God determines that it is wrong. Contrariwise, God determines that the action is wrong because it is wrong: God, being infallible, does not make mistakes about these things.

4. I don't believe that an action is morally wrong if it harms no one at all. This is where the program accuses me of inconsistency, because the authors of the quiz claim that their questions are written to exclude the possibility of harm. I disagree, and I shall endeavour to show why.

5. I answered 'yes' to this one because I happen to believe in God (or at least a God). If God created the universe, then either he created morality right along with it (as a thing that arises from the facts of nature), or else morality existed before the universe. Either way, it has an external source.

6. It wouldn't bother me particularly to see my flag used as a cleaning rag, but I'm unusually insensitive about these things. I appreciate that such a custom hurts other people's feelings, which, by my standards, is a (mild) form of harm. If there were a country where MY country's flag were used to clean toilets, I would consider this 'bad', or at least, less good than the alternative: because the only reason to use my country's flag in particular would be to show disrespect. If they did this to THEIR OWN flag, that would be strictly their business; but that isn't what the question asked. (If they cleaned toilets with EVERYBODY'S flag, that would not be immoral, but it would annoy all their neighbours, and nobody would lift a finger to save them in a crisis. Diplomats take flags very seriously, and without diplomats, a country has to live and die by its guns.)

7. I consider this thing about breaking a secret deathbed promise to be morally wrong, though in a very small way: what the Catholics call a venial sin. The harm it does is to encourage the man in the habit of breaking promises. If he had no intention of keeping the promise, he shouldn't have made it. Telling whoppers to your dying mother is not a particularly nice thing to do, in my books.

8. I have no problem with the family eating their cat, if they don't. It would be a good idea to do so in private, so as not to gross out the neighbours (which is also a mild form of harm).

9. The brother and sister who have incest harm themselves and each other by doing it. The question specifies that 'it remained a positive experience for them throughout their lives', but that doesn't really mean anything. Positive in what way? By whose standards? It might only mean that it was pleasurable to them, and they have learned to judge everything by the standard of their own physical pleasure. That would be very bad indeed. Besides, they're doing a different sort of harm by indulging in a one-night stand. I know a great deal about the kind of damage people can do who think of casual sex as a 'positive experience'.

As for the country where this kind of incest is routine, sorry, that's a strawman. You can seldom be 100% sure that a woman in her twenties is infertile, and any accident could be disastrous. Then, too, having had sex once, brothers and sisters would probably have a strong desire to do it again, so that keeping the custom would influence you to break it. A custom like that won't survive long, and it's nonsense to pretend that it will.

10. I don't know whether anyone is harmed by the man's fling with the poultry, because I haven't got sufficient information. If he then goes off and sleeps with his wife, and she gets a nasty infection from salmonella in her urinary tract, obviously that would be harmful. If he doesn't sleep with his wife, who wants that kind of attention, because he's satisfied himself with the chicken, that, too, is a kind of harm. Context is everything, and the author didn't do a rigorous enough job of defining the context here.

By the way, I considered it 'bad' to have a custom of having secret sex with dead chickens. The key word here, for me, is secret. There is something definitely unhealthy about a society where everybody feels compelled to keep their sexual activities hush-hush. That was the Victorian attitude, which so many people have rightly condemned. This country full of secret chicken-lovers would have the interesting distinction of all being perverts and prudes at the same time.

[Avatar]

I certainly agree that the context is important, but I don't think that they were meant to be taken as probable either. Most of the scenarios were clearly intended as "perfect world" hypotheses. What they seemed more interested in was the principle rather than the practicalities.

Excellent and ironic last point by the way, I certainly agree that the secrecy aspect is unhealthy, sociologically speaking at least.

Of course, we differ about the "god" point though, where you suggest that things that god descries as wrong must be wrong. While I agree that certain things, such as murder, for example, would be wrong whether or not god had decreed it so, there are several things where this, in my opinion, does not hold true.

--Avatar