What qualifies significant harm? — DingoJones

I would define significant harm as damage that significantly impairs one's mental, emotional or physical ability to be a normally functional contributing member of the community.

Also, would your answer change if we make a distinction between drug use and drug abuse? — DingoJones

Using drugs of a kind, or to an extent, that causes significant harm I would classify as "abuse".

Why would you single out drugs? — DingoJones

I haven't "singled out drugs", you have by asking the specific question.

Nobody asked for a short answer, thankfully. Why did you opt to offer one?

I would define significant harm as damage that significantly impairs one's mental, emotional or physical ability to be a normally functional contributing member of the community. — Janus

I do not think i agree with “normally functioning” member. The “normal” part especially. Is there something immoral about not being normal?

Using drugs of a kind, or to an extent, that causes significant harm I would classify as "abuse". — Janus

Right, we are talking about drug use not drug abuse, so you mentioning harm is non-sequitor unless you think all drug use causes harm. Is that what you think? If it is, then Im going to ask you if thats consistent with other things people do. Football causes harm to self or others, is that immoral too?

I haven't said that abnormality or sub-normality is immoral. "Normal functioning" was meant more in the sense that one might say that the body is normally functioning, a car is normally functioning or a tool or appliance is normally functioning; that is 'able to do what it would normally be expected to be able to do'.

Could we use the term “healthy”, or maybe “relatively healthy”. That seems the best descriptor to if I understand you correctly. (I think I do).

Football is not the same as taking drugs because it is an entertainment industry; in a sense it is itself a job, it is certainly not a solitary activity. If playing football is doing significant damage to its players such that they become unfit for other activities, then it is immoral, given that football is of no practical value to society, but is mere entertainment.

Right, we are talking about drug use not drug abuse, so you mentioning harm is non-sequitor unless you think all drug use causes harm. — DingoJones

So, this is a silly statement given that I have already defined drug abuse as immoral, and have said that drug use just is drug abuse if it causes significant harm.

Sure, you could use other terms, but why the need to if it doesn't change anything in the argument?

Ok, so is drug USE immoral?

Why would it be, if it does not cause significant harm?

Nobody asked for a short answer, thankfully. Why did you opt to offer one? — DingoJones

A number of reasons. One reason is that I've already given the longer version, and I'm not over the moon at the prospect of repeating myself just because you appear to want to start up the merry-go-round again. Another reason would be that it is such a big and complicated issue that the wording of the question doesn't do it justice. I would hardly know where to begin. There are so many factors which would require careful consideration, and no details whatsoever of any particular case have been set. It is a very unstructured set up for a serious discussion about the issues surrounding illegal drugs.

I cant imagine why, I guess we agree.

I didnt realise you had already layed it out in this thread. Like with Janus, I imagine we agree anyway.
Why didnt the people who actually think its immoral answer?

:cool:

I didnt realise you had already layed it out in this thread. Like with Janus, I imagine we agree anyway.
Why didnt the people who actually think its immoral answer? — DingoJones

I don't even know if they're all online right now. But people like Tim answered the question earlier, it's just that it's a rubbish answer that has been picked apart. That's why I asked whether there was anything that hadn't already been dealt with.

I must have jumped over that part. I get bored watching you try and explain the same shit over and over with little results so I confess I skipped pages here and there.

I must have jumped over that part. I get bored watching you try and explain the same shit over and over with little results so I confess I skipped pages here and there. — DingoJones

:lol:

I was looking for respect (for law qua law) as the condition which facilitates our “immediate compliance”.

What is this “other” you’re referring to? — Mww

Other people. What else is law for or about? Nothing else on the planet needs laws, or could enact them anyway. Respect for immediate compliance - ok, I agree, as the general form of respect for persons.

Compliance to the law is condemnable in some cases, and certainly not worthy of respect. It's meaningless to talk about this abstractly and removed from particular cases. It's not something which can be discussed sensibly through hasty generalisations or by talking in dogmatic absolutes.

Compliance to the law is condemnable in some cases, and certainly not worthy of respect. — S

In this you set "the law" equal to particular law. Seems like clear category confusion to me. Unless you hold that "the law" is in fact equal to - means - particular law. And that might be convenient for someone who denies any obligation to comply with any law except as he himself decides for himself whether he will comply, in which case he allows it to be a law.

Of course with this you allow yourself to do anything you want because for you there is no such thing as law until and unless you decide it is a law, after you decide if you feel like complying with it - for the moment at least. Obviously with this no issue of morality, because there is nothing to be moral about.

Any accuracy in this?

Answering questions is a fun exercise, and I'm not scared of making a fool of myself, because we're all fools. :ok:

The question is why? Because you have educated yourself on all of them and have got detailed knowledge of each, and from that knowledge base make a personal decision for yourself in every applicable situation and on every occasion whether to obey or break that law? — tim wood

Yes. Of course. How could I possibly know what is against the law unless I've researched the law? It's not generally written on signposts. And yes, of course I think through my actions to check morality. No I don't necessarily stop at a stop sign, in fact, when all the road signs were taken away in an experiment in the Netherlands road traffic accidents reduced, so I make a point of ignoring road signs and using my senses instead.

then how do you avoid the exhausting and constant consideration of your circumstances you need to be in compliance? — tim wood

If that's really how you see personal moral responsibility, then I think we're getting a very clear picture of why you have such authoritarian views. "Oh I can't be bothered to actually work out for myself what's right or wrong, somebody else tell me!"

In the general sense law is the codification of principles or rules to be followed under threat of punishment for failure to follow them. Law as a general principle would be something like "Do what I say or be punished". — Janus

Right, and yet you said that my position that there was no moral imperative to respect the law was "confused" and that...

We should respect law as law, — Janus

So, given your definition of what 'law' is (which seems accurate enough to me) what moral is obliging us to 'respect' it?

I maintain that some morals, those to do with "life and death" matters such as murder, rape, torture are near universally accepted across cultures as applying at least to those who are communally considered to be members of the community. This really is a matter of survival because any culture which did not follow that way would not last long, obviously; there would be no solidarity. — Janus

I'm all too aware of the fact that you "maintain" it. Any actual counter-argument to the point I'm making, or are we just going back to sticking your fingers in your ears? I expect I'll be accused of 'sophistry' in a minute, seems the usual tactic to shrug off any counter-arguments people don't like around here.

Is anyone really surprised people like @S become a little 'blunt' in their responses. We go round and round with long, complicated counter-arguments and eventually end up either being ignored, accused of sophistry or told we "don't understand".

Compliance to the law is condemnable in some cases, and certainly not worthy of respect.
— S

In this you set "the law" equal to particular law. Seems like clear category confusion to me. — tim wood

I was clearly talking about particular cases, which implies particular laws. I said "in some cases". There's no category error, and I'm not confused at all. I know exactly what I'm saying, and I don't think that it's difficult to understand. The problem is coming from you. What I said makes sense. Following the law necessarily consists in following particular laws. I was referring to an unspecified set of particular laws. I told you why I was talking about particular cases rather than talking about the law "abstractly and removed from particular cases": the reason being that that would make no sense. Any reasonable person who has given the topic careful consideration would respond to the question of the morality of breaking the law by asking which laws. There's a world of difference between two seperate cases on either extreme of the moral scale which would otherwise be erroneously glossed over. There's no 'one answer fits all'. You're pretty much on your own with that approach, and with your problematic semantics.

Of course with this you allow yourself to do anything you want because for you there is no such thing as law until and unless you decide it is a law, after you decide if you feel like complying with it - for the moment at least. Obviously with this no issue of morality, because there is nothing to be moral about. — tim wood

Absolute nonsense that you've pulled out of thin air. It does not reflect my position at all.

Any accuracy in this? — tim wood

No.

A couple pages ago you mentioned Kantian self-legislation. Given that self refers to the specifically human subjective condition and legislation refers to the creation of, or amendment to, laws, it raises the question.....what would any sense of “others” have to do with internally legislated moral law, and the respect rational agents in general possess for law in itself which promises their un-mediated compliance with them?

Either self-legislation, and the principle of absolute necessity from which sine qua non law itself with no empirical content whatsoever arises, is false, or, there can be no sense of “others” in reference to it.

that there is no - zero - expense, that no immorality attaches to the breaking, because they have decided so. — tim wood

Hmmm. To help you understand where they (we? well, at least me anyway) are coming from (I do not expect this to suddenly transform your view, just mentioning), is there ANY moral action you can think of, that I cannot come up with a hypothetical where that "moral" action suddenly becomes "immoral"? Sure breaking the law is somewhat immoral, so is donating to charity. Everything would be on a scale with NOTHING being perfectly moral, right?

To go to the second half of your statement, "because they have decided so"; isn't that how we ALL come up with our morality? Sure we may listen to some other person or deity, but in the end, each person decides what they think is right, right?

That is a great point. I think it will be very difficult to refute the way you’ve put it there. Well done sir.

A couple pages ago you mentioned Kantian self-legislation. Given that self refers to the specifically human subjective condition and legislation refers to the creation of, or amendment to, laws, it raises the question.....what would any sense of “others” have to do with internally legislated moral law, and the respect rational agents in general possess for law in itself which promises their un-mediated compliance with them?

Either self-legislation, and the principle of absolute necessity from which sine qua non law itself with no empirical content whatsoever arises, is false, or, there can be no sense of “others” in reference to it. — Mww

Hmm. I doubt very much you're confused, but it seems to me you have mixed up some things here. There's the logic of the thing, the machinery of it. There's what it is about, and there's what it's for.

1) By "Kantian self-legislation" I meant that process by which a person takes on such rules he lives under and makes them his own so that he doesn't live under them but rather by them. I think of this as a process of reason. I stop for red lights because I understand it is best both for me and my community - and thus choose to do it freely and immediately.

2) As to others, are you suggesting that Kant did not recognize the other? Kant's ethics, his categorical imperatives are all about the other, including the self as one among others. Law-in-itself is simply a generalization of the Kantian "should" itself particularized in distinct laws and rules. As a thing by itself, to stop at a red light or a stop sign I do not have to rehearse on every occasion the whys and reasons. All I need is to know the law. At my leisure, I can reflect on that law, and refresh my understanding of its reasons and purposes, but in practice I need only be aware of it as law.

3) I suppose the knot unties itself by recognizing that the several laws are all about empirical "content" operating in a machinery of reason, the reason being the generalization of the purpose of the laws, and as reason being a priori. I take the purpose of the law-in-itself to be for the general good. But for the good of what? People.

I know you know a lot of Kant. Correct as applicable.

In the general sense law is the codification of principles or rules to be followed under threat of punishment for failure to follow them. Law as a general principle would be something like "Do what I say or be punished". — Janus


Right, and yet you said that my position that there was no moral imperative to respect the law was "confused" and that...

We should respect law as law, — Janus


So, given your definition of what 'law' is (which seems accurate enough to me) what moral is obliging us to 'respect' it? — Isaac

It seems obvious to me that if you have no wish to live in a lawless society, you should respect the law as law; but it does not follow from that that any particular law should be respected. Lawless societies would not be expected to thrive or even to last for long, so if you wish to live in a society at all, it would seem to follow that the consistent and honest attitude would be to respect the law as law, which is really equivalent to wishing that there should be laws.

I maintain that some morals, those to do with "life and death" matters such as murder, rape, torture are near universally accepted across cultures as applying at least to those who are communally considered to be members of the community. This really is a matter of survival because any culture which did not follow that way would not last long, obviously; there would be no solidarity. — Janus

I'm all too aware of the fact that you "maintain" it. Any actual counter-argument to the point I'm making, or are we just going back to sticking your fingers in your ears? I expect I'll be accused of 'sophistry' in a minute, seems the usual tactic to shrug off any counter-arguments people don't like around here.

Is anyone really surprised people like S become a little 'blunt' in their responses. We go round and round with long, complicated counter-arguments and eventually end up either being ignored, accused of sophistry or told we "don't understand". — Isaac

You didn't only claim that morality was inter-subjective. You additionally claimed that some morals were "near universal", and it is that issue that I disputed. — Isaac

This is the claim that you are complaining that I haven't addressed. But I have: my counter-claim was that "some morals, those to do with "life and death" matters such as murder, rape, torture are near universally accepted across cultures as applying at least to those who are communally considered to be members of the community."

This is obviously a claim that those morals are subjectively, and hence inter-subjectively, near universally to be found. And you have provided no argument that I can see to refute that claim. Perhaps you could give an example of a society in which murder, etc, is or was widely approved of. I have virtually no doubt that you can't do that. Prove me wrong!

You make a lot of assumptions about how people will respond, and about what people ought to be surprised or not surprised about. I'm not surprised by @s bluntness and insulting, toxic style of "argumentation" because that is what I have come to expect from him, not because I think his behavior is at all justifiable. I haven't seen any sound or relevant arguments from either you or s to support the kind of arbitrary subjectivism of the individual, as opposed to the normative subjectivism of community in relation to morality; what has been presented mostly just consist in what I judge to be "red herrings", and category errors.

Well done sir. — DingoJones

Well thank you. I always appreciate confirmation that what makes sense in my head, actually works :smile: