Is it ever ethical or morally justified to do that which one knows to be morally wron

Mandy

Well-known member
Re: loaded question, to Tamara

I'm sorry,

I didnt have anything against your title. I participated in discussion before Tim had posted and I never made such a statement, which should support my claim. In thinking about the OP and JUPITERASC's position, I thought that Tim made an excellent point. Thats all. It was a point that opened my eyes to my way of thinking about the subject. Honestly, my last reply was in no way implicitly directed at the title of the thread, though I can understand how it could have easily been misinterpreted. To be clear, Tamara, I find your posts always intelligent and well informed. I am yet to see one that isnt. Here, Tim helped me to acknowledge a more direct route to thinking about JUPITERASC's post. I hope that clarifies things. :love: Again, I apologise if I had offended you momentarily.
 
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JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Re: loaded question, to Tamara

I am currently in the process of postgrad in neuropsychology. Neuropsych faces a problem in that there are huge numbers of patients suffering psychologically and yet we know not a great deal about the brain in order to help them. I dont want to get too techical, but there are many promising ideas in neuropsychological research that could be conducted with various populations in order to yield a more comprehensive understanding of the more holistic, and natural, sides of brain function and yet the ethical board would never approve them. This is because there would be a small chance of an adverse consequence occuring as a result of expert experimentation. Also, practice shows such research is seldom funded. Conversely, we have all these drug trials with anti-depressants. What is more, the anti-depressants have been licensed for wide spread use. However, one physician can never predict how one's brian will react to the medication. Research has shown that suicide rates have gone up drastically directly as a result of Prozac. Perhaps part of the reason for this is because often one's symptoms tend to worsen for the first few weeks of taking the drug before any relief is experienced. Begs the question: Why is experimentation (which can help understand a multitude of ailments from the vegetative state to Alzheimers to depression) wrong and tightly controlled and the licensing of drugs to the already vulnerable (OUT) patients, who have no medical assistance at home, lack of funds for therapy, etc., and the drugs have a realistic possibility of making them substantially worse, is okay. I dont know how clearly I have conveyed what I want to say as I write this in a hurry, but the point is that the industry key to helping people prioritizes financial outcomes over those pro life, in many cases. I suppose this finds reflection in JUPITERASC's example, in that: is it better to (reversibly) affect potentially a few people in order to perpetuate lasting research, or to harm openly the already vulnerable, in greater numbers, and charge them for it in the process? Its not a hypothetical example. Also, it makes me think about Hauser's claims in the context of their relevance when pittied against the blindingly widespread social manipulation in the world today, leaving any "innate" morality corrupted from childhood (potentially).
Ethics related to neuropsychology? I assume there are existing guidelines Mandy :smile:You've mentioned drug trials, with Prozac as an example. I recently watched a documentary entitled "Psychiatry an Industry of Death" which IMO provides food for thought http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qs9TLTvYFs&feature=related
 

tsmall

Premium Member
Re: loaded question, to Tamara

I'm sorry,

I didnt have anything against your title. I participated in discussion before Tim had posted and I never made such a statement, which should support my claim. In thinking about the OP and JUPITERASC's position, I thought that Tim made an excellent point. Thats all. It was a point that opened my eyes to my way of thinking about the subject. Honestly, my last reply was in no way implicitly directed at the title of the thread, though I can understand how it could have easily been misinterpreted. To be clear, Tamara, I find your posts always intelligent and well informed. I am yet to see one that isnt. Here, Tim helped me to acknowledge a more direct route to thinking about JUPITERASC's post. I hope that clarifies things. :love: Again, I apologise if I had offended you momentarily.

Mandy, I wasn't offended in the least, and I like the research you are doing, as well as the posts you have made here. In some ways the ideas are hard to think about (such as the benefit we received from the tortuous experiments the Nazis carried out...yes we did benefit, but oh, my at such great cost..) If anything, the idea for this thread was meant only for each of us to carefully examine what we believe about ourselves and our morals, and then to challenge those ideas with situations or circumstances that would really force us to decide if we live up to our own expectations.

All is good. :love:
Tamara
 

wilsontc

Staff member
following down the yellow brick road, to Jupiter

Jupiter,

You said:
Not a reason for.....?

That begs two questions:
(1)"Is immorality innate?"
(2) "Is immorality learned?

your comment may be summarized as "the ends justify the means"

Exactly! You understand! You didn't give the reason you promised: you said you had a reason then you started talking about morality being "innate". Which isn't a reason for anything.

And no, it doesn't "beg" any question. If children by their nature are not born moral, then morality is NOT innate. And that means NOT being moral is innate. Which means that immorality IS "innate". If immorality is "innate" that means it exists at birth so immorality is NOT learned.

To recap, the conclusions of my statements are:
- Immorality IS innate
- Immorality is NOT learned (which is the same thing as saying immorality is innate)

And my QUESTION can not be summarized as an ANSWER. My QUESTION "Maybe morality is over-rated?" is NOT the CONCLUSION "Morality IS over-rated" or "the end justifies the means". My question is just that, a question up for debate and discussion.

To Oz and back,

Tim
 

wilsontc

Staff member
questions lead to more questions, to Tamara

Tamara,

You said:
Isn't it funny how a simple question can lead you to try to define who you really are, and what you really believe?

Exactly! That's what's fun about questioning things...you start out with one question and that answer leads to new questions or help you define the question more clearly. It's all part of the process...

Questioning,

Tim
 

Mandy

Well-known member
Ethics related to neuropsychology?

Ethics related to neuropsychology? I assume there are existing guidelines Mandy :smile:

There are existing guidelines, but when you look statistically at the overall results/success/failure rate + poor understanding of neurotransmission, one can see that the pharmaceutical industry is blatantly breaching the code of ethics by poisoning the vulnerable (depressed/anxious/insomniac) population, at large.

Even when presented with all of the evidence about the fact nothing is known about the vegetative state (e.g., http://perso.univ-rennes1.fr/pascal.benquet/index_fichiers/science FRMI vegetatif.pdf), since physiologically, these patients show no difference (e.g., no lesser blood glucose matabolism) from those who are "minimally conscious", and are not subjected to feeding withdrawal, the JUDGE (of all people) will still decide that it is most appropriate to have the life of a living patent, albeit "vegetative" (externally), terminated.

BUT, if a scientist wants to conduct research on this patient group (who are also fed drugs which may be doing more harm than good into a vegetative brain) by means of interventions, its often prohibited since this patient group cannot consent to this. Dont misunderstand me, I would never dream of inflicting any discomfort to these patients (I volunteer a hospital where they are and its the best job I've ever had and I'm not even paid for it), I'm just saying from an objective pov that what is considered ethical behaviour within "neuropsychology" is, comparably, not followed by those who have deciding input (doctors; judges), instead it is actively kept at a constant, so to ensure implicitly some kind of efficiency within society. However, the strict guidelines must be maintained by those who are trying to discover something new. Again, its a more ecologically valid example of your Hauser dilemma: whats better, to research the brain of a patient by means of necessary intervention, tightly controlled and in hospital, or to put that same patient to death following no research by means of necessary intervention/or to give them (in the case of depressed people) harmful drugs outside of the hospital?

As an unnecessary piece of information (in support of my rant), I was advising a friend the other day on what to do in order to get a certain benefit from the government. She isnt depressed, but I told her to go to the doctor and tell him that she is depressed. He gave her a prescription and when we looked it up, it turned out to be an anti-psychotic! It made me so scared to think what this man is precribing to people who are genuinely vulnerable such as the truly depressed or the elderly. We have reported him. But, when you cant trust your doctor to do the right thing (morally), because he probably believes that he's doing an excellent thing (morally), who is to blame?
 

wilsontc

Staff member
so close! to Jupiter

Jupiter,

You said:
The comment...is a matter of opinion...IF children by their nature are not born moral then the INFERENCE you make is that ALL children are 'not born moral'. That INFERENCE is false because SOME children ARE 'born moral'....may be alternatively summarised as “I'm immorally wondering that maybe immorality is under-rated?” aka “maybe the ends justify the means?”

No, that's a matter of fact. Either a reason IS there or it ISN'T and yours ISN'T there...still isn't there in fact...

So close! The inference I make from my original statement is that children have the ability to be immoral...so logically it follows that SOME children are immoral, exactly as you said. I never said ALL children behave this way...I simply said "many children" behave this way. That is, logically there are SOME children who do NOT behave this way.

True, you COULD summarize it that way, but that would be inaccurate. What is there about wondering about the immorality of something immoral makes the wondering immoral? If I wonder whether or not Jeffrey Dahmer was moral or immoral does that MAKE me immoral? And my point wasn't about immorality being UNDER-rated, it was about morality being OVER-rated.

The only thing here that you seem to have gotten right in my point is that you SHOULD have stated "Does the end justify the means?" as a QUESTION, not a STATEMENT. I see you have now corrected yourself to phrase this as a question. So ONE way to look at the question of is morality over-rated is "Does the end justify the means?" There are OTHER ways, but that is ONE question.

Getting closer,

Tim
 

eedwards

Well-known member
Morality and ethics classes are taught in schools. I have never heard of immorality or unethics classes being taught in schools...hmmm. If morality is inherently innate would these classes be necessary? Do you remember those little hardcover Golden books that we all loved as kids? They were entertaining but also, (in many cases), taught us about ethics and morals.
 
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MaeMae

Banned
Morality and ethics classes are taught in schools. I have never heard of immorality or unethics classes being taught in schools...hmmm. If morality is inherently innate would these classes be necessary? Do you remember those little hardcover Golden books that we all loved as kids? They were entertaining but also, (in many cases), taught us about ethics and morals.

all those golden books come in different forms, languages and messages for different people with different backgrounds.
The metaphorical tower of babble.
 

wilsontc

Staff member
potential for immorality, to eedwards

eedwards,

You said:
Morality and ethics classes are taught in schools. I have never heard of immorality or unethics classes being taught in schools...hmmm. If morality is inherently innate would these classes be necessary?

Exactly. There is the potential in every child for immoral behavior...whether or not they act on it determines whether they BEHAVE morally or immorally. Ideally in our society the longer children are taught and modeled moral behavior the more moral they become. That raises the question of what TYPE of morality they learn and how they apply it. As has been pointed out, moralities differ between cultures. For example, the morality of Shariah law is very different from the morality of Christian law which is different from the morality of the Torah in Jewish law. So when you talk about a person being "moral" there is the question of WHAT type of morality are you talking about?

Asking more questions,

Tim
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Morality and ethics classes are taught in schools.

Morality and ethics classes are linked with the study of world religion in schools
.

I have never heard of immorality or unethics classes being taught in schools...hmmm.
Hilarious. Which school would admit to teaching immoral and/or unethical behavior? Even if that were the case - e.g. military academy training school
If morality is inherently innate would these classes be necessary?
IMO we're agreed that although SOME children are born with innate morals NOT ALL children are born with innate morals - furthermore no human child is perfect - hence classes for all
Do you remember those little hardcover Golden books that we all loved as kids? They were entertaining but also, (in many cases), taught us about ethics and morals.
Ethics and morals at Adult level bring in Legal ethics, medical ethics, consumer ethics, religious ethics et al :smile:
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
morality is innate

So when you talk about a person being "moral" there is the question of WHAT type of morality are you talking about?
Asking more questions,
IMO universal common-sense innate morality. i.e. My contention is that morality and/or ethics are innate AND even if we are imperfect human beings and frequently avoid acting on innate moral and/or ethical promptings - that DOES NOT INVALIDATE the existence of innate morality and/or ethics :smile:
 

tsmall

Premium Member
Re: morality is innate

IMO universal common-sense innate morality. i.e. My contention is that morality and/or ethics are innate AND even if we are imperfect human beings and frequently avoid acting on innate moral and/or ethical promptings - that DOES NOT INVALIDATE the existence of innate morality and/or ethics :smile:

Wait, there is such a thing as universal common sense? I've actually found that "common sense" isn't really that common. :tongue:
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Re: morality is innate

Wait, there is such a thing as universal common sense? I've actually found that "common sense" isn't really that common. :tongue:
Not everyone takes note of "common sense" promptings and those who do obviously do not necessarily act on those "common sense" promptings.

i.e. C
ommon sense may indicate to avoid driving after drinking alcohol - however alcohol related road deaths are frequent simply because many of us ignore those "common sense" promptings!:smile:

Alcohol-related traffic crashes are a leading cause of unintentional injury deaths and a substantial contributor to health-care costs in the United States

(1). Approximately 40% of persons are involved in alcohol-related crash during their lifetime
(2). 1992, alcohol was involved in estimated 17,700 traffic fatalities and 355,000 traffic injuries

(2,3). 1990, alcohol-related crashes cost $46.1 billion, including $5.1 billion medical expenses
(4,5). This report summarizes alcohol-related traffic fatalities (ARTFs) data from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS) 1982-1992 http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00022270.htm
 
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tsmall

Premium Member
Re: morality is innate

Not everyone takes note of "common sense" promptings and those who do obviously do not necessarily act on those "common sense" promptings.

i.e. Common sense may indicate to avoid driving after drinking alcohol - however alcohol related road deaths are frequent simply because many of us ignore those "common sense" promptings!

Yes, but if someone is impaired by consuming alcohol, then mental acuity, or "common sense" would also be impaired, wouldn't it?

I was thinking more along the lines of the theory of holes. If you find yourself in one, the first thing to do is stop digging. Yet how many people keep digging? Or another example that I personally witnessed...someone who has achived the level of Eagle Scout, yet decides it would be a good idea to open a woodstove and throw a cupful of gasoline onto a fire?
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Re: morality is innate

Yes, but if someone is impaired by consuming alcohol, then mental acuity, or "common sense" would also be impaired, wouldn't it?
but if someone made the decision to avoid consuming alcohol BEFORE driving (based on common sense) then they would be making that decision BEFORE their common sense became impaired by alcohol:smile:
 
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eedwards

Well-known member

Morality and ethics classes are linked with the study of world religion in schools
.

Sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't. Do you know why they are linked with world religions in many cases? Because religion in one of the, (probably the most powerful), tools that society uses to teach about ethics and morals. If morals were innate these classes would not be necessary.


Hilarious. Which school would admit to teaching immoral and/or unethical behavior? Even if that were the case - e.g. military academy training school

So, you also think the military and it's trainings are unethical or immoral? I, for one, am very thankful for our military.. I can't imagine where we would be without it. Perhaps we should have just "turned the other cheek" throughout history and things would have turned out "okay"?



IMO we're agreed that although SOME children are born with innate morals NOT ALL children are born with innate morals - furthermore no human child is perfect - hence classes for all

I have never agreed upon those terms. I believe that morals are something learned, something taught and\or instilled upon someone throughout their life. IMHO, no one is born with "innate morals". I do believe that survival is innate and we will use use whatever means necessary to accomplish that end...be it moral or immoral.



Ethics and morals at Adult level bring in Legal ethics, medical ethics, consumer ethics, religious ethics et al :smile:

Yes, but their roots are in the very basic things that were taught to us...instilled in us...as children...from "Golden Books"...religion...our parents...etc..
 
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JUPITERASC

Well-known member
So, you also think the military and it's trainings are unethical or immoral?
Soldiers are trained killers and IMO killing is wrong so obviously IMO military training is unethical or immoral - BUT of course, that is only my opinion and others are entitled to disagree

I, for one, am very thankful for our military.. I can't imagine where we would be without it. Perhaps we should have just "turned the other cheek" throughout history and things would have turned out "okay"?
since "the other cheek was not turned" any answer is speculative :smile:
 
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Neptune Rising

Well-known member
So, you also think the military and it's trainings are unethical or immoral? I, for one, am very thankful for our military.. I can't imagine where we would be without it. Perhaps we should have just "turned the other cheek" throughout history and things would have turned out "okay"?

I'm too young to remember WW2, but I'm glad our people in the UK didn't turn the other cheek when Mr Hitler decided to follow his dream! Glad Winston Churchhill wasn't a 'sit on the fence' type of chap. :lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEDWDAMRBeU :p
 
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