WLTM...

[j4]

... the guy who wrote this personals ad. (Thanks kosai for the link!)

It's so hard to write personals ads. I wrote an ad on uk.misc a while ago which read:

WTD: well-off husband with no morals. Must be willing to buy large house & put up with me filling it with junk. I can offer: use of gigantic book collection, homely cake-baking, a collection of crap 8-bit computers, and unconditional love. GSOH essential (see attached photo).

Everybody pointed out that I'd forgotten to mention sex, so I suppose I should add "I have girl-bits and I know how to have sex". I'm fairly low-maintenance, really; I need food, water, sunlight and conversation (by email will do). I don't expect anything more from the world. I am in reasonably good health. I'd like to own cats one day. Is it too much to ask?

Comments

[nja.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm being a bit flippant here. I do have some morals -- at least, I think I do, it kind of depends how you define "morals" -- but very few that aren't relative & situation-based. There are very, very few (if any!) things about which I would be able to say "I believe this to be absolutely right/wrong in all circumstances".

Unless you'd say that the same thing could be right or wrong on an arbitrary basis given the same set of circumstances, that's still having a moral code of sorts. Perhaps not a well worked-out one, but I don't think that's necessary. I can't think of many actions I'd say are wrong in all circumstances. Motives are a different matter. Is the desire to be deliberately cruel to someone else ever right?

[j4.livejournal.com]

Unless you'd say that the same thing could be right or wrong on an arbitrary basis given the same set of circumstances,

I'm not entirely convinced that in 4-dimensional space there's any such thing as "the same set of circumstances". Time/space/people/beer/same-river-twice. I shouldn't drink before posting philosophical mooings.

that's still having a moral code of sorts. Perhaps not a well worked-out one, but I don't think that's necessary.

I think I have a fairly well worked-out, though not formally codified, "moral" code (though I'm not entirely happy with the terminology as you can tell from the scare-quotes).

I can't think of many actions I'd say are wrong in all circumstances. Motives are a different matter.

Fair point, but:

Is the desire to be deliberately cruel to someone else ever right?

Mu. That is: I don't think the desire to be deliberately cruel to someone is right or wrong. I don't think the question makes sense to me. I think the desire is natural, but acting on it is a different matter. Though I don't like the logical extension of this, which is that moral judgements can only be applied to actions. ... I have a vague idea that "morals" come from where we draw the line between thought and deed, but after three pints I'm worried that that is a completely indefensible standpoint & I'm just too drunk to see it. Though I was never, ever, even at my most mad-Christian, comfortable with the idea that in God's eyes, thinking murderous thoughts is every bit as "sinful" as murder.

[nja.livejournal.com]

Well, if you have a particular desire there are two things you can do:

Firstly, take the Aleister Crowley "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" approach, and just act on your desires without thinking.

Or secondly, consider whether that desire ought to be acted on, i.e. make a moral judgement as to whether that desire is good or bad. Of course, you might base the decision to act or not on the consequences rather than the desire itself, but I think there are some desires (e.g. deliberate cruelty) which ought not to be acted on regardless of the consequences. Doesn't stop us from doing things we know to be wrong, though (Hume said reason is a slave to the passions).

[j4.livejournal.com]

Or secondly, consider whether that desire ought to be acted on, i.e. make a moral judgement as to whether that desire is good or bad.

We may be splitting hairs here (in a philosophical discussion? Surely not!) but it still seems to me that what you are deciding on here is whether the action is good or bad.

I don't think the desire to commit acts of deliberate cruelty is, in and of itself, bad. It could even be argued that experiencing, recognising and acknowledging the desire (without acting on it) enables one to know oneself better; to recognise what has occasioned those impulses and learn to avoid them or deal with them in different ways; to work through the anger and dissipate it by visualising revenge rather than acting with deliberate cruelty (or lashing out in frustration at people who are nothing to do with the original situation); maybe even to understand better why some people do act in deliberately cruel ways.

However, I can't think of a situation in which acting in a way that's deliberately cruel would be something I could justify to myself. (I'm assuming we're not including being-cruel-to-be-kind here, because if that genuinely is being cruel to be kind then it's not really an act of cruelty but an act of kindness...)

I'm sure there's an obvious flaw in this argument, but I'm not sure what it is.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Desire can't be wrong or right; action can be. Is being deliberately cruel to someone ever right? Probably not... but it's not always wrong, either.