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	<title>Comments on: Living Morally Without Universal Morality</title>
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	<link>http://www.swadharma.org/2010/01/09/living-morally-without-universal-morality/</link>
	<description>The voice of Dharma</description>
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		<title>By: Gokul Madhavan</title>
		<link>http://www.swadharma.org/2010/01/09/living-morally-without-universal-morality/comment-page-1/#comment-905</link>
		<dc:creator>Gokul Madhavan</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 16 Jan 2010 06:34:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.swadharma.org/?p=2339#comment-905</guid>
		<description>I love Dostoevsky, but his quote is inapplicable to the Indic sphere. Consider Jainism, which denies the existence of a creator god, and Buddhism, which is agnostic / essentially atheistic. I would love to see someone try to argue that &quot;all is permitted&quot; for Jains and Buddhists.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I love Dostoevsky, but his quote is inapplicable to the Indic sphere. Consider Jainism, which denies the existence of a creator god, and Buddhism, which is agnostic / essentially atheistic. I would love to see someone try to argue that &#8220;all is permitted&#8221; for Jains and Buddhists.</p>
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		<title>By: Siddarth</title>
		<link>http://www.swadharma.org/2010/01/09/living-morally-without-universal-morality/comment-page-1/#comment-898</link>
		<dc:creator>Siddarth</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2010 03:28:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.swadharma.org/?p=2339#comment-898</guid>
		<description>&lt;blockquote&gt;
But the question is if everyone has their own perspective of their own morality, where do we draw the line? Is there a line where a person goes from being accepted in society to socially considered pathological due to his/her moral beliefs? Do we need a common perspective of morality?
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
We don&#039;t draw lines. :) We make individual judgments on what is right and wrong that are (at the risk of being repetitive) completely arbitrary; I can&#039;t help but quote Nietzsche here:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of &quot;world history&quot; — yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.

One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
There exist laws that determine these on a larger scale to aid governance and circumvent absolute chaos. While it would be wonderful to find a common perspective of morality, this is largely unfeasible. And we don&#039;t really &lt;em&gt;need&lt;/em&gt; one.
 
Thoughts?</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<blockquote><p>
But the question is if everyone has their own perspective of their own morality, where do we draw the line? Is there a line where a person goes from being accepted in society to socially considered pathological due to his/her moral beliefs? Do we need a common perspective of morality?
</p></blockquote>
<p>We don&#8217;t draw lines. <img src='http://www.swadharma.org/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' />  We make individual judgments on what is right and wrong that are (at the risk of being repetitive) completely arbitrary; I can&#8217;t help but quote Nietzsche here:</p>
<blockquote><p>
In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of &#8220;world history&#8221; — yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.</p>
<p>One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature.
</p></blockquote>
<p>There exist laws that determine these on a larger scale to aid governance and circumvent absolute chaos. While it would be wonderful to find a common perspective of morality, this is largely unfeasible. And we don&#8217;t really <em>need</em> one.<br />
 <br />
Thoughts?</p>
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		<title>By: Tom</title>
		<link>http://www.swadharma.org/2010/01/09/living-morally-without-universal-morality/comment-page-1/#comment-893</link>
		<dc:creator>Tom</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:34:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.swadharma.org/?p=2339#comment-893</guid>
		<description>Sid,
By &#039;social moral perfection&#039; I intended to refer to an artificial sense of &quot;moral purity&quot; in which the person and the society unanimously agree that the person&#039;s social ethics are completely &#039;moral&#039;, that is he/she adheres to the laws of what is collectively considered &#039;morality&#039;.
One pseudo-practical way I could think of how such a social moral perfection is attained, was if in an Utopian idea of a perfectly anarcho-autocratic Free society where freedom existed in its literary meaning and the ultimate moral would be considered maintaining freedom.
And so I agree with you when you say moral perfection cannot be reach, considering that the very definition of morality is different from person to person, because it reflects a subjective perspective. So what I tried to imply by my example of a &quot;free society&quot; is that since moral perfection is unattainable because everyone has varying morals, the only way moral perfection could ever be reached was if everyone had the same objective perspective of morality (In case of the &#039;&#039;free society&#039;&#039; the ultimate moral would be maintaining freedom). The impracticality of  such a society  is evident.
 
But the question is if everyone has their own perspective of their own morality, where do we draw the line? Is there a line where a person goes from being accepted in society to socially considered pathological due to his/her moral beliefs? Do we need a common perspective of morality?
 
 </description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Sid,<br />
By &#8217;social moral perfection&#8217; I intended to refer to an artificial sense of &#8220;moral purity&#8221; in which the person and the society unanimously agree that the person&#8217;s social ethics are completely &#8216;moral&#8217;, that is he/she adheres to the laws of what is collectively considered &#8216;morality&#8217;.<br />
One pseudo-practical way I could think of how such a social moral perfection is attained, was if in an Utopian idea of a perfectly anarcho-autocratic Free society where freedom existed in its literary meaning and the ultimate moral would be considered maintaining freedom.<br />
And so I agree with you when you say moral perfection cannot be reach, considering that the very definition of morality is different from person to person, because it reflects a subjective perspective. So what I tried to imply by my example of a &#8220;free society&#8221; is that since moral perfection is unattainable because everyone has varying morals, the only way moral perfection could ever be reached was if everyone had the same objective perspective of morality (In case of the &#8221;free society&#8221; the ultimate moral would be maintaining freedom). The impracticality of  such a society  is evident.<br />
 <br />
But the question is if everyone has their own perspective of their own morality, where do we draw the line? Is there a line where a person goes from being accepted in society to socially considered pathological due to his/her moral beliefs? Do we need a common perspective of morality?<br />
 <br />
 </p>
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		<title>By: Siddarth Chandrasekaran</title>
		<link>http://www.swadharma.org/2010/01/09/living-morally-without-universal-morality/comment-page-1/#comment-888</link>
		<dc:creator>Siddarth Chandrasekaran</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:16:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.swadharma.org/?p=2339#comment-888</guid>
		<description>&lt;blockquote&gt;
I was wondering, though, about other ways that people use to approach the question of “doing the right thing.“  &lt;strong&gt;Are there other ways to think about it, beyond finding a universal code of behavior as guide and source of judgment?&lt;/strong&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;What if we’re unable to recognize which choice serves or helps the most people?&lt;/strong&gt; It’s only natural that the person we know best is ourself — how do we figure out what best “improves society” as a whole?  What if that’s different from what other people actually want?
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
This is why people to turn to religion. To trust something &quot;infallible,&quot; that comes from a supreme higher authority, is enormously comforting. In the absolute terms, I have come to believe that (I paraphrase Dostoevsky here): &lt;em&gt;If there&#039;s no God, all is permitted.&lt;/em&gt; That is, in an absolute sense, nothing is &quot;wrong.&quot; We have personal standards that we choose to keep, but these are based on merely value judgments that we have made.
&lt;blockquote&gt;In a free society, the only way that social moral perfection can be attained is by helping an individual gaining complete self-ownership.&lt;/blockquote&gt;
@Tom, I&#039;m a little confused - what do you mean by &quot;social moral perfection&quot;? If you&#039;re defining a free society as a society that lifts all regulations on individuals to let them function completely independently, it undermines the idea of a &quot;society&quot; in that to be part of a society is to conform to certain rules and laws, &quot;official&quot; or cultural or otherwise.
Regardless, this definition is (quite obviously) very impractical.
&lt;blockquote&gt;
Can you think of any way how every person can achieve moral perfection in today’s society?
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
I&#039;m denying that there is such a state of &quot;moral perfection&quot;. There is a state that embodies all the personal standards that each of us choose, but how to achieve this standard is very specific to the individual&#039;s goal itself! Hence, to prescribe a generic method is somewhat meaningless.
 
Thoughts?</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<blockquote><p>
I was wondering, though, about other ways that people use to approach the question of “doing the right thing.“  <strong>Are there other ways to think about it, beyond finding a universal code of behavior as guide and source of judgment?</strong>
</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>
<strong>What if we’re unable to recognize which choice serves or helps the most people?</strong> It’s only natural that the person we know best is ourself — how do we figure out what best “improves society” as a whole?  What if that’s different from what other people actually want?
</p></blockquote>
<p>This is why people to turn to religion. To trust something &#8220;infallible,&#8221; that comes from a supreme higher authority, is enormously comforting. In the absolute terms, I have come to believe that (I paraphrase Dostoevsky here): <em>If there&#8217;s no God, all is permitted.</em> That is, in an absolute sense, nothing is &#8220;wrong.&#8221; We have personal standards that we choose to keep, but these are based on merely value judgments that we have made.</p>
<blockquote><p>In a free society, the only way that social moral perfection can be attained is by helping an individual gaining complete self-ownership.</p></blockquote>
<p>@Tom, I&#8217;m a little confused &#8211; what do you mean by &#8220;social moral perfection&#8221;? If you&#8217;re defining a free society as a society that lifts all regulations on individuals to let them function completely independently, it undermines the idea of a &#8220;society&#8221; in that to be part of a society is to conform to certain rules and laws, &#8220;official&#8221; or cultural or otherwise.<br />
Regardless, this definition is (quite obviously) very impractical.</p>
<blockquote><p>
Can you think of any way how every person can achieve moral perfection in today’s society?
</p></blockquote>
<p>I&#8217;m denying that there is such a state of &#8220;moral perfection&#8221;. There is a state that embodies all the personal standards that each of us choose, but how to achieve this standard is very specific to the individual&#8217;s goal itself! Hence, to prescribe a generic method is somewhat meaningless.<br />
 <br />
Thoughts?</p>
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	<item>
		<title>By: Tom</title>
		<link>http://www.swadharma.org/2010/01/09/living-morally-without-universal-morality/comment-page-1/#comment-881</link>
		<dc:creator>Tom</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 10 Jan 2010 23:42:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.swadharma.org/?p=2339#comment-881</guid>
		<description>[continued]
Moral &#039;&#039;machine&#039;&#039; that is fault-less. Since this is truly impractical, it is my opinion that subjective, intrapersonal moral content is not mutually related to social moral perfection.
In a free society, the only way that social moral perfection can be attained is by helping an individual gaining complete self-ownership. That is, help them enough that they have complete control over their lives and such that their lives are only the products of their actions and their environment. Helping them any less would be subjugating them to some sort of slavery by letting their freedom be parametrized or by helping them too much will make them dependant on your altruistic nature and you would control brief slices of their lives.
Can you think of any way how every person can achieve moral perfection in today&#039;s society?</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>[continued]<br />
Moral &#8221;machine&#8221; that is fault-less. Since this is truly impractical, it is my opinion that subjective, intrapersonal moral content is not mutually related to social moral perfection.<br />
In a free society, the only way that social moral perfection can be attained is by helping an individual gaining complete self-ownership. That is, help them enough that they have complete control over their lives and such that their lives are only the products of their actions and their environment. Helping them any less would be subjugating them to some sort of slavery by letting their freedom be parametrized or by helping them too much will make them dependant on your altruistic nature and you would control brief slices of their lives.<br />
Can you think of any way how every person can achieve moral perfection in today&#8217;s society?</p>
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