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KRIS-Week-Eight

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years ago

Kristopher's Attempt at a Definitional Argument

 

 

"So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.\" -Benjarmin Franklin

 

1: [..]"The attempted reconciliation relied on the different interests at stake in the two cases; that is, eating meats without frustrating what some might call a right to life is practically impossible for any social person, whereas eating animal derivatives, in itself, does not frustrate such a right. It was likely the most intellectually lazy and abhorrent attempt that I have ever made to rationalize a morally odious behavior, and for it I am ashamed. But, it reminds me that I am not beyond disingenuous argumentation (in the sense that I might initiate an argument for a position I suspect is fallacious), and that I must be vigilant in removing these sorts of obstructions along the road to moral clarity."[..] - Cory

 

2: [..]"After the 2005 series of bombings, which killed prominent figures such as Rafik Hariri, Samir Qasar, George Hawi and Gibran Tueni dead and almost killed TV anchorwoman May Chidiac, Lebanon fell into a state of utter confusion. This series of horrible events lead to the eventual withdraw of Syria from Lebanon. (Israel had already withdrew in 2000.)"[..] - Hend

 

3: “What is worse, a child who breaks 15 glasses on accident or a child who breaks one glass while reaching for a jar while his parents aren’t home?” [..] - Kevin

 

Morals? What?

 

What are morals you may ask? What makes the idea of something becoming moral or immoral so controversial? Is it the heightened sense of involvement with relation to a person's emotion about the topic or is it just another way we overly justify things we do as humans? I am going to try to refrain from being personal about the topic because that is what I'm trying to argue affects the true meaning of what is moral. In a sense, morals are the study of what is thought to be right and what a group, society, or a culture generally does. In general, morals correspond to what actually is done in a society (Philosophy). A more definitional and perhaps more objective approach to what morals are defined as can be found over at the Wikipedia. While some philosophers, psychologists and evolutionary biologists hold that morality is a thin crust hiding egoism, amorality, and anti-social tendencies, others see morality as equally a product of evolutionary forces and as evidence for continuity with other group-living organisms. One approach argues that moral codes are founded on emotional instincts and intuitions that were naturally selected in the past because they aided survival and reproduction (Wikipedia: Morality). All too often I find people in my life in and around me miss defining and applying what they think is moral or immoral and confusing it with their own beliefs. It's the fine gray line that separates beliefs from morals because beliefs are what you yourself hold as being right or wrong, but on a moral basis it is what the society around you deems right or wrong. For example, an individual who committed a heinous crime against society by slaughtering an entire family in cold blood would have deep down believed it to be the right thing to do, but on a socially moral level it is deemed immoral and as such should be punished.

This pictures title said,

Now lets apply morals to the fallacy of equivocation. In formal logic, equivocation is the use in a syllogism (a logical chain of reasoning) of a term several times, but giving the term a different meaning each time (Wikipedia: Fallacy of Equivocation). For example:

 

Morally it is wrong.

It is wrong to eat meats.

Therefore, morally it is wrong to eat meats.

 

Apart from its use as a technical term in logic, "equivocation" can also mean the use of language that is ambiguous, as in it is equally susceptible of being understood in two different ways. There is usually a strong connotation that the ambiguity is being used with intention to deceive. This type of equivocation was famously mocked in the porter's speech in Shakespeare's Macbeth, in which the porter directly alludes to the practice of deceiving under oath by means of equivocation. "Faith, here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven" (Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 3).

Is war immoral or is it just a part of life and destructive reconstruction?

All of this may or may not be relevant in the short run, but in the broader picture I'm trying to illustrate that what someone defines as morally wrong and the very wrong thing to do is only what that person believes to be morally wrong and in turn that falls into the category of what a belief is and should be defined as. Belief can be understood as a state of mind in the process of increasing understanding that is sometimes called deduction. As people develop structures of understandings from observation or learned facts (generally accepted truths), they create a theory that is not unlike a bridge, sitting on those pillars of facts. This structure-building process is sometimes called induction. A general understanding of the specific facts is created. As people use these theories in their daily activities, research or experimentation, they tell themselves: I believe the underlying structure is true, to the best of my understanding — so, based on this theory, I will see what is to come of it. This application and testing of faith is sometimes called deduction (Wikipedia: Belief).

 

G.E. Berrios challenged the view that delusions are genuine beliefs and instead labels them as "empty speech acts", where affected persons are motivated to express false or bizarre statements due to an underlying psychological discourse. Presiding over both fallacy of equivocation and beliefs, I think most individuals make the largest mistake in applying what they think is moral and not providing any substance as to why their claim is as such. Instead, like the quotes above I chose, eat meats is morally wrong and an action must be taken to such a sensitive topic. Well, I fully understand that he believes eating meat is wrong, but it in no way should apply to moral code that eating meat is wrong because society as a whole does not believe this. The same goes for people who eat meat and their justification. There is no moral involvement in what one chooses to eat or not eat, but a combination of personal preference and what society tells us what we should be eating. Society tells us that indirectly that cows, chickens and pigs are bred for the sole purpose of providing nutrition and substance. That is their purpose in life and that's it. If you apply moral feeling to the fact that we are slaughtering animals for consumption, then you are becoming overly involved in the topic and letting your beliefs cloud the actual use of the term moral. The same concept applies to violence illustrated by Hend and the involvement of emotion into a subject that for the most part should remain unemotional. To some people war may be wrong, but war only becomes immoral when society as a whole defines it as such. This type of deduction comes from the very simple example that killing another person in cold blood is morally wrong and almost all our foundation as the United States follows suit. However, war isn't followed just the same, war is a necessary part of life. If there were no war, there would be no destruction of an existing problem and reconstruction into a solution. Think about the Civil War, both sides believed that they were right and the other was wrong, but ultimately it had to be solved in a less than decent manner to come to outcome that is acceptable for all. What I'm trying to say throughout this attempt at a definitional argument is that you cannot involve emotion and feeling to what moral and immoral is defined as, but you must refrain objective and understand that what you think is morally wrong doesn't apply to the whole aka fallacy of equivocation.

 

Bibliography

 

I avoided creating a bibliography because I wanted to create a more flowing argument with the links and citations right inside of my paper. I'm trying this different approach contrary to traditional citing where a bibliograph page was necessary because on a wiki you can "hyperlink" to your sources. Totally sweet!

 

I beg of you to allow me to sit on the informal panel that reviews/revises/comments on this essay. There are several misconceptions and misunderstandings that I would like to address, and I don't believe any of them are controversial, so this shouldn't directly result in a drawn out discussion. - Cory

Cory, just drop a link down here and start posting man. I need explaining on your verbage from your paper so that I may clarify my own. Work in progress! -Kris

The largest gutter, I intentionally and at the same unknowingly did was apply the assumption that a overall moral code exists. .:Kris:.

 

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