• DingoJones
    2.8k
    Im interested in some thoughts concerning how moral/immoral actions balance out.
    When we judge a person as moral or immoral, it seems to me that we are measuring his moral actions against his immoral ones. We consider the act, its consequences, collateral benefit or damage and how it all fits morally speaking. An ethical cost/benefit analysis if you will.
    If a person commits theft but regrets in it for some reason and spends the rest of their life giving most of what they have to charity (not necessarily a formal one, could just be to people he meets who are in need or whatever) then he has worked off some kind of moral debt. We might even say the person has paid their moral debt and has a surplus, moral credit, if they ended up with a huge imbalance of moral acts over immoral ones. (For example, stole a pack of gum but saved millions of lives and donated billions of dollars to charity)
    If we can measure the moral balance in this way, I dont see any reason why even heinous acts of immorality couldnt be balanced out in the same way as my stick of gum example above. This is where Id like to be challenged, as Im not very comfortable with that conclusion.

    The most obvious objection to that line of reasoning is principal based, that breaking the rules is breaking the rules and no action can justifiably balance another. Thats a more fundamental issue, I dont really buy into principle based ethics. For every principal, its trivially easy to show an instance where adhering to that principal is the act of a moral monster. For example, its wrong to lie. Well, what if the lie saves a billion people? The person who refuses to lie in that instance, is a moral monster. The only way to get around that contradiction is to make yet another appeal to principal, or commit semantic fallacy where the acts are considered separately (the lie was still wrong, the saving was right).

    Id most like to discuss the first bit, but I recognise that it relies on a non-principal based approach to ethics. Perhaps someone would be sporting enough to consider this thread in the context of a non-principal based approach, even if they do not normally do so.

    Anyway, what Im not interested in discussing is the objectivity/subjectivity of morality. This discussion doesnt require it and if you think it does then Im sorry to say Im not talking to you. (By which I mean, ignore this thread as its not addressed to you.)

    So, can we pay off moral debt? Are we moral simply by having our moral acts (and all the good they do) outweigh the immoral acts (and all the bad they do)?
    (Also, I realise good acts can have bad results and vice versa, I think we can cross that bridge when we come to it, which we very well may not have to)
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k
    I think a terrible person can be reformed and even redeemed. I don’t think this is the case for everyone, though. As examples, Ghengis Khan and Adolf Hitler. They could never “erase” the harm they did. It is up to others to make a better world in spite of their evil.

    Mike Tyson was convicted of rape. A horrible crime. I believe he can be reformed and redeemed. I don’t know enough about his life to say whether or not he has been, though.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    1.7k


    We might even say the person has paid their moral debt and has a surplus, moral credit, if they ended up with a huge imbalance of moral acts over immoral ones.

    This seemed kind of funny to me because it implies that if someone were to spend a year doing charity or building houses for the homeless or something they'd now be entitled to go punch a few pregnant women because, hey, they got all these moral credits and why let them go to waste?
  • DingoJones
    2.8k


    Lol, ya I know. Sounds silly when you put it that way. However, I wouldnt say that those actions you used balance out.
    Now, it doesnt really matter where you think those balances are so much as whether you think that a balance (and surplus of either morality or immorality) is possible. We can make it easier to consider in the interests of exploring the idea. So, what about a person who spends all day, every day working at saving lives...lets say the save 100,000,000 lives a year. Once a year, he takes a day off and stalks the streets, chooses a dude at random and kicks him square in the nuts. Back to work the next day. Does he earn anything for saving so many people? What kinda asshole goes “fuck those 100,000,000 people and their friends and family's grieving, I aint letting nobody kick me in the balls!”? Lol
    Also, if you object to the surplus of good, why not the surplus of bad in a redemption story? Why does it work one way and not the other?
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k
    I think we can all forgive the occasional kick in the nuts for the saving of 100 million people. That’s my take.

    Now if the person saved the planet from extinction, but she was also a serial killer? Tricky.

    I think one has to make a concerted effort to reform oneself. I don’t think you just earn points and demerits like spending on a debit card that gets regular deposits. That seems just wrong.
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    Yeah I don’t think blameworthiness and praiseworthiness work like that, for a practical morality. What matters is whether a person is likely to do more good or bad in the future. If blame or praise positively influence that, then they deserve it. If not, they don’t. If you could magically make Hitler into a good person (as in someone who will for sure do good going forward), his past misdeeds would not carry any weight on the appropriate moral judgement of him anymore.

    Basically, imagine if you were a god of infinite mercy and forgiveness. You would still of course care that people do good things and not bad, but your focus would be on reforming people to best ensure that they do better in the future, not on passing pointless judgement on their past misdeeds. That is the kind of moral standard that humans should aspire to too. Forgive everyone on principle and just try to influence how they will behave in the future. Nobody has legitimate moral debts or credits, just evidence of past behavior that warrants rehabilitive action to change their future behavior.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    1.7k


    Why can't the guy who saved 100 million lives just go out one day and kill someone? He's still far in the net positives for moral credits.
  • DingoJones
    2.8k


    So you think intention is definitive of how the balance is struck? Does it really matter why the person saves 100 million lives? Wouldn't you be glad he did it? (Provided the 100 million lives were the moral surplus of course).
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k
    I don’t know. I suppose if he saved 100 million lives by accident, then I wouldn’t call that worthy of praise. I would call that lucky.
  • DingoJones
    2.8k


    Sure, I get it, an enlightened, non-judging consideration. Im explicitly asking in the context of judging however, so that doesnt answer the OP.
  • DingoJones
    2.8k


    Yes, i agree an accidental act isnt really a moral one (unless someone was so careless it was immoral I suppose), but what if the person saved the lives to get girls? Its still saving 100 million people.
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k
    To get girls? Well, that’s basically the morality of nearly every teenage boy. I wouldn’t fault him, but I wouldn’t praise him.
  • DingoJones
    2.8k


    Exactly. Thats essentially what Im asking. Why couldnt he? It follows the same rationale. If the ball kicking was ok, why not the murder?
  • DingoJones
    2.8k


    But would his saving of lives be considered in the balance of morality?
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k
    If the murder were in the heat of passion, then I would argue that saving 100 million lives somewhat forgives that. If saving 100 million lives is an excuse to kill someone, then that’s not okay.
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k
    To the lives saved, I’m sure they don’t really care if it was in the pursuit of girls. To the God of The Old Testament, I think what was in the guy’s heart matters. To me, it doesn’t really matter.
  • SophistiCat
    2.2k
    This assumes a scalar metric of moral action that accumulates and follows the usual arithmetic rules. Why assume that?
  • DingoJones
    2.8k
    ↪DingoJones If the murder were in the heat of passion, then I would argue that saving 100 million lives somewhat forgives that. If saving 100 million lives is an excuse to kill someone, then that’s not okay.Noah Te Stroete

    Ok, lets hear the argument.
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k
    Let me just ask you this: If someone lived a moral and ethical life for 70 years, then murdered someone in cold blood for joy or revenge or to send a message or whatever corrupt reason, should they not be prosecuted? Do you really want to live in a society where someone is seen as above the law? I don’t.
  • DingoJones
    2.8k


    None of what I said was intended to follow mathematical rules. The terms were meant in a broad sense, to illustrate my points.
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k
    That said, there really are people who are above the law. It shouldn’t be that way, but I’m not in charge.
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k
    Would you feel like you would be entitled to a murder for saving millions of lives?
  • DingoJones
    2.8k


    Well, I don’t conflate the law and morality, I think of the two as distinct from each other, so youre really asking a different question from my point of view.
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k
    Well, I don’t conflate the law and morality, I think of the two as distinct from each other, so youre really asking a different question from my point of view.DingoJones

    Some laws coincide with morality. Murder is one.
  • DingoJones
    2.8k


    I think I disagree with that, but you had mentioned that you would argue that the heat of passion would make it somewhat forgivable if traded for 100 million lives? Id like to hear your argument.
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k
    These are just my opinions. As far as the heat of passion, in a court of law this gets a lesser sentence because of a lesser degree of culpability as seen by most. They should still be prosecuted, but I think the saving of the millions of lives should be considered in the sentencing (in a just world). Just my view, and I’m no authority.
  • DingoJones
    2.8k
    Oops, please delete.
  • Qwex
    366
    I believe that good is pro-creative and pro-logical. It is a complex thing. It's not like the judge is empathetic, I believe, he is a law abider. Hell is a logical and creative process, criminals MUST have done something bad.

    There is bad, but there is also good who produces the event of hell - the judge.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    1.7k


    I think if you're a utilitarian this kind of judgment makes sense. Personally, I'm not a utilitarian so I wouldn't judge how morally good a person is by their balance of good consequences versus bad consequences. The first reason I'd use for this is that I feel like as people we just know that there are things we should never, ever do - for instance, crimes against children. I don't care if you're a doctor who has saved hundreds of lives; that doesn't allow you to go abuse children. That's just how I think about morality - it's first and foremost "don't do this" and then we can go on to other topics.

    Keep in mind someone could also do a moral action but it has a bad consequence. How do you judge that? For instance, lets say you rescue a man but he turns out to later kill some people. Would that count against you or in your favor in your moral credits vs debts? There's always that question of how far we extend those consequences. Maybe that man who you saved has a son who is the next Hitler.
  • SophistiCat
    2.2k
    None of what I said was intended to follow mathematical rules. The terms were meant in a broad sense, to illustrate my points.DingoJones

    That may not have been your intention, but that is what it amounts to. Even if you say that this moral arithmetic is loose, it still has the approximate structure of an arithmetic. And my question still stands: why? You admit that this model has unpalatable consequences, such as paying forward for bad deeds*, as @BitconnectCarlos pointed out - that certainly doesn't seem right. So what's the attraction of the model? Does mathematical neatness overcome moral reservations?

    * Actually, "paying forward" is a known psychological phenomenon: we tend to give ourselves more license after we do good deeds, especially those that are costly and demanding. But while this may be an unconscious tendency, when we become conscious of it, we usually recognize its moral faultiness.
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