How to baffle a Conservative:

[dave123williams]

Ask them this:

"Describe, as you understand it, the difference between morals and ethics."

Be prepared for stammering.

Extra credit: "What, as you understand it, is a Value?" When they start reeling off 'family, faith, duty, honor, country' you must step in and say, "I didn't ask you to name values, I asked you to describe what a value is".

Simple questions, that in my experience, causes the same look to appear on a conservative's face as that of my dog when I try to show him a card trick.

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. LOL ! Well done! n/t

[jpgray]

2. I think pointing out inconsistencies in legislating morality is fun

Like how it's okay for the federal government to legislate morality by outlawing some abortions or gay marriage, yet feeding, sheltering and clothing the poor is none of its business.

[deutsey]

3. Also be prepared to offer your understanding of the difference

[forgethell]

5. Dang, you beat me

to it.

Never ask a question like that that you don't already know the anser to.

And remeber, the purpose is not to confuse them, but to convince them.

[ktowntennesseedem]

9. Purpose to convice not confuse; they're confused enough as it is!

Only a slightly better change of convincing any of them, but there are still a few that can be reached.

[knight_of_the_star]

30. That could do it though

Through confusion it could convince them.

[dave123williams]

6. Well, of course!

Morals are an innate understanding of the difference between right and wrong; Ethics are a codification of those understandings, in a topical taxonomy, as a set of rules for behavior.

It's the difference between rules that are the actual foundation of Law, and not just an individual, and unaccountable, sense of conscience.

Conservatives often place their sense of morality above adhering to moral behavior in practice. To wit, examine the career of Tom Delay, and the prioritization of the GOP's loyalty to him over his unethical behavior. There's a lot of other concrete examples of this.

[forgethell]

11. Yet different cultures

understand "right and wrong" differently. So what makes your understanding better than that of any old redneck or primitive tribesman with a set of human heads in front of his hut? He after all has an "innate" understanding, too.

Having a set of morals is different from adhering to moral behavior in practice. Ethics apply, more I think, towards a code of behavior for a set of individuals such as a profession. Lawyers can behave immorally while still staying within the confines of the ethics of their profession.

[dave123williams]

12. Lawyers are a bad example...

because they're charged with serving the interests and directions of their clients, within the bounds of the law. This position of advocacy gives you some serious wiggle-room, because your highest priority is serving another's interests. In this way, the individual morality of the lawyer is secondary to the obligation to those you represent.

I will agree with you that morals are indeed relative, and it's easy to prove. In pre-columbian central america, a priest might have had a moral obligation to cut the living human heart out of a sacrificial prisoner. In our society, that's not generally smiled upon.

[forgethell]

14. So as I understand it;

it is OK with you for people to cut the living heart out of a human being if that is their culture?

And I disagree that lawyers are a bad example. In this way, the individual morality of the lawyer is secondary to the obligation to those you represent.


This is exactly my point. Lawyers work to get, oh, murderers off. Now the accused might be innocent, but most probably they won't be. Or, to help banks screw credit card customers, or to help the IRS screw the average citizen, or vice versa. All ethical. Not moral. In other words they seem to be obliged to be immoral to be ethical.

But some lawyers even violate 'ethcis' with impunity. For instance, how ethical is it for government attorneys to pile on cahrges to Michael Milliken or Martha Stewart for some technical violation of the law? How ethical to suspend "due process" procedures in child abuse witchhunts. How ethcial to allow your clients to lie, or to propose alternate theories for which you have absolutely no evidence?

Finally, I dispute that "morals" is an individual choice or opinion. Morals are the glue that holds society together. If you are violating "morals", then you are hurting at least one other person for your own benefit. Otherwise it's just 'taboos' or 'mores', not 'morals'.

[dave123williams]

19. Dont be fatuous.

Morals are an indivudual understanding of the difference between right and wrong, and that varies from community to community, from religion to religion and from person to person. It also changes with time. My sense of morality is going to be different that yours.

That's why we have ethics; to codify the issues, and have a little rulebook that we can all agree on. These 'ethics' are the foundation of Law.

Morals are not glue, unless you're trying to make the point that they're sticky at best.

So, no; it's not ok with me if human sacrifice is practiced, but that's MY sense of morality. People who lived 1500 years ago and in Central America might have had a totally different sense of morality, and thusly considered it a sacred practice, a moral OBLIGATION.

For a lawyer, yeah - it's within the bounds of morals, ethics and the law to defend their clients. You don't seem to get that they enjoy a special place within our society, and with good reason; it protects us all under the law. If you're having trouble grasping this....

Here's some reading to help you understand what lawyers are supposed to do:

http://www.abanet.org/cpr/ethics/mcpr.pdf

[forgethell]

23. Thank you, I know about lawyers

and ethics. "Ethics" is what permits them to violate normal morals. I actually don't have a problem with them giving an honest defense. It's when they violate their own ethics that I complain.

What you are talking about is "mores", not "morals". And, I was not being fatuous. I quote,People who lived 1500 years ago and in Central America might have had a totally different sense of morality, and thusly considered it a sacred practice, a moral OBLIGATION.


You are saying, unmistakably, that is is "moral" to rip the heart out of a human being, if your sense of marlaity permits. Well, let me state, here and now, that it is not "moral" under any circumstances, to do so.

At any event, since neither you nor I can agree on what the difference between morals and ethics are, we should not expect conservatives to accept your views either, as I'm sure they have one of their own.

[dave123williams]

24. You are really, really silly...

You seem to have no capacity to understand that there are people who would find doing something that you'd find morally objectionable, perfectly reasonable.

You don't seem to understand, yet, that morals are an individual sense of right versus wrong....there are no moral absoloutes, because everybody has their own, differing understanding of the line between right and wrong. We use ethics to draw the line.

I think that you think that 'morals' involve things that are immutably 'good' (or evil), and have been for all time. I've pretty clearly explained that, using our 'Incan' example, morals change over time.

What you consider 'good' or 'evil' may differ wildly from what other people do. There is NO SUCH THING as normal morals, because different societies, different people see things very differently.

So, it would have been considered moral by those Incans to rip the living human heart out of a person. The key thing for you to get here is that THEY would have considered it moral, even if you don't, or if you can't understand how they could consider it so.

You also don't seem to grasp what an ethic is. An ethic is a rule, which governs behavior, and is codified from a moral or set of morals.

How then can a lawyer use ethics to avoid moral behavior, exactly?

Use an example of an ethic that you can adhere to which allows you to be amoral...I can't wait to see what you come up with, really.

[forgethell]

25. Actually, I understand

much better than you. I simply don't accept your definition.

Let me give you another example. In the 50s and 60s, Southerners morals included 'keeping blacks in their place'. They thought this was necessary to protect their pure, white women. This was their culture, and it was changed, by force, by outsiders.

So, following your definition, and logic, were they moral to do so??

Yes, or no.

On edit: Think of the "ethics" of that clown Peter Singer, who is coming up with "ethical" reasons to "abort" children after they are born

These are the definitions that I am using.


From Dictionary.com

n.
A concisely expressed precept or general truth; a maxim.

morals Rules or habits of conduct ... with reference to standards of right and wrong: a person of loose morals; a decline in the public morals.



ethics (used with a sing. or pl. verb) The rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession: medical ethics.

[dave123williams]

27. It's like talking to a brick wall...

>So, following your definition, and logic, were they moral to do so??

My point is that THEY thought they were being moral. Morals are relative, get it?

[forgethell]

28. I disagree.

Get it?

I also noticed a certain similarity to a brick wall, funny, no?

[dave123williams]

29. So, you see no way that one person could find something morally good, and

...another could find the same thing morally repugnant? Who's the brick wall?

[forgethell]

31. Oh yeah.

I can see that. One person is wrong, maybe both. Depends on what it is. You are.

[dave123williams]

33. I appreciate your conceding the point and the argument...

No matter how ungraciously.

[forgethell]

35. I conceded nothing.

I said people can have different opinions. I did not say all opinions are equal.

If there is no absolute morality, then I would be perfectly justifed, if that word had meaning, in killing, robbing, raping, because it fit my personal sense of morality.

Let me ask you a question. Do words have any meaning to you? We can talk around each other all year if words don't mean the same thing to us, which I doubt that they do.

[dave123williams]

37. Once again, fatuous...

Sure, you could make the justification that killing, robbing and raping fits your personal sense of morality, but that's why we have ethics, and therefore laws. It kind of works like this:

Imagine there's a society with no laws.

Everybody in a society gets together and has kind of a quorum about what is, or isn't acceptable morality. Some people may say, 'well, isn't rape, murder and robbery cool?' and many of the other people might say, 'well, no - not to us; we might get raped, robbed and killed. Let's have a meeting about what is, or isn't cool. That way, we'll all be on the same page.'.

So, you get a list of rules that outline when killing is cool, and when it's not; what behaviors are acceptable, and which aren't, and in which circumstances. Largely, you'll find this early codification in religious texts; it's as old as the hills...how a group of people codify their shared values in the formation of a community. But those values vary from religion to religion, and from society to society, dont they?

Look to the New Testament, the Old Testament, the Talmud, the code of Hammurabi and the Koran for examples of this. No, not all examples of early ethical codification are religious in nature. Yeah; there's lots of shared ideas between these texts, but also many differences.

But, we have a pluralistic society that's a bit more complex than that...there are multiple sets of morals that are taken in to consideration when authoring the law that will govern everybody, regardless of religion.

So in this way, there's another, secular, convention. This gives our society a set of guidelines from which it will draft its laws. Ethics aren't as simple as 'professional guidelines', they're the underlying set of morals codified by agreement in to a set of rules for behavior.

This hasn't always been the case. Time was, leadership thought it ruled by 'divine right', that God was the foundation of the right of rule, and therefore the law was founded on a leader's individual sense of morality and personal relationship with the Almighty.

Turns out, some people didn't find that cool either, because the morals of one leader in the same society could be radically different from that of another. This inconsistency is anathema to peaceful living, and this underlying conflict is kind of how we got the Magna Carta, a secular convention that really opened up the road to Constitutional Law:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta

It was the first time in human history that an ethical codification of law proved superior to executive moral whim. It's literally the foundation of our own Constitution.

What I'm trying to illustrate here is that trying to govern by morality is a very fickle proposition, and is not done in our Country with damned good reason; it's not consistent, and it's not cool.

For instance, you can be morally certain that torturing people to save democracy is just fine. You'd also be breaking the law, and wiping your ass with the canon of ethics and the Constitution.

Here's what happens when you start using absoloute moral justifications:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_war

Those guys used 'moral' justifications to commit horrible, horrible atrocities. Here's a great quote, ""As many people as necessary must die in Argentina so that the country will again be secure," Videla declared in 1975". This fucker killed 30,000+ of his own countrymen to 'protect the greater good'.

People of faith tend to think that there's an absoloute morality, ordained by God. The trouble is, not everybody believes in the same God you do, and not every society is organized in the way yours is, and you'll find that there's ultimately a lot of killing of those who don't agree with what your God says is the truth. It's happened again and again, and every time it does, the perpetrators are ABSOLOUTELY CONVINCED that they're doing the 'moral' thing.

Ask yourself; what happens when you believe that there is absoloute morality, and someone in a different part of the world believes in absoloute morality, but your versions of absoloute morality are totally different? Think there might be some kind of conflict? Maybe violent conflict?

[forgethell]

38. OK, bottom line

any society that thinks that it is "moral" to rip the heart out of a living human being is an immoral society.

You never did answer. In the South, it was OK to lynch blacks. Was this moral? Yes or no.

Look. We will never agree because you do not accept my definition of terms, and I do not accept yours.

As for the last question: yes there may be violent conflict. But if killing isn't wrong in absolute terms, so the hell what?

Being morally certain doesn't mean that you are right. There is an absolute morality that prohibits killing, except in defense (self or society). If you can't see that, then nothing I can say will convince you.

But you want convince anybody, either.

Peace.

[dave123williams]

40. How is morality 'absoloute' if it prohibits killing,

except sometimes? Which times is it ok? Does everybody agree on that? Might your ideas on when it's ok differ from mine? How about if we lived in different societies? At different points in history?

Once again; YOU think that the society that allows for human sacrifice is immoral. THEY thought they were perfectly moral for performing human sacrifice, and honoring their gods in their traditional roles as priests.

AMERICAN jurisprudence thinks the jury's still out on capital punishment of the retarted, that it could be morally just. SWEEDS think we're totally amoral for executing anybody whatsoever.

The people doing the lynching thought they were protecting their way of life, and were therefore morally right. Personally, I find it detestable, but then I wasn't raised in the Klan, now was I. Their moral structure obviously allows for lynching, or they couldn't do it and then feel good about having done it.

Understandings of morality differ, see? You now have three solid examples to use in reflection on the idea that there's no absoloute right or wrong. That those 'absoloutes' truths we cling to are dependent largely on our point of view should be obvious.

Morals are relative to how you see the world, how you were indoctrinated by your own particular society.

Morals are therefore relative, and not absoloute. QED.

[forgethell]

42. What you call 'morals'; I call

'mores'. "Ethics' pertains to a formalized system of behavior.

We'll just have to disagree on whether morals are absolute, or not. but I would maintain that if there is no absolute standard, then 'morals' do not exist at all.

It's OK to kill when attacked because in this situation somebody is going to be killed, anyway. Might as well be the aggressor.

Now, you can, of course, approach this from the basis of "God commands this". But there are other bases of approach. For instance, what is best, or what works best, based on human nature. Then, of course, you get into whether human nature is flexible or relatively inflexible. I belong to the relatively inflexible school myself, and I would guess that you belong to the flexible school.

Assuming, just for the sake of argument, that I am correct, I think it could be said that some cultures have practices that coincide with human nature more perfectly than others. All cultures want food, security, family, love, etc. for their members. Yet who has more security: a member of the middle class in America, or the chieftain of a Yanamomo tribe in the Amazon. That is a culture of head-hunters, the 'shrunken head' people. According to what I have read, most of their wars are over the stealing of women. As far as I am concerned, that culture is hardly worth living in. And is an immoral culture.

As I said, I do not think that we are going to come to an agreement. Culture differ, yes. What one culture considers 'moral', another may not. Yes. I consider this to be "mores". Somewhere out there there is an absolute standard of morals, just like the universe actually is governed by some distinct set of laws. It is our obligation, I think, to try to discover them. Religion and theology and philosophy and even bull-shitting, like we are doing, may be useful. Just like experimentation in science.

We seem to have wandered far from the original statement about how to "baffle a conservative". You may have baffled one or two, but I think you need cultivate a higher class of conservative. Just like us, there are dumb ones, and very,very smart ones.

Peace

[Acryliccalico]

44. A better example of ethics is in the profession of counseling

In counseling ethics is a set of rules (code) that must be adheared to for the benifit of the profession first then the client second. Boundry lines to stay inside. Teachers, also have these.

[Guaranteed]

41. That's an excellent explanation of the difference.

Thank you. :)

[htuttle]

7. Well, that's easy

Ethics is how you treat other people.

Morality is how you measure up against how others think you should conduct yourself in private.

I pride myself in having impeccable ethics and low morals.

[dave123williams]

13. Incorrect; see above.

[blondeatlast]

17. Yeah, the Republicans I can tolerate associating with are misguided,

but NOT stupid.

I had the same thought.

[Burma Jones]

4. If you persist, they will punch you in the nose.............

Confusion only enrages them................

[WMliberal]

10. so does suggesting to them that they should follow the Beatitudes.

It's always a good followup to their spouting off some Leviticuz.

[In Truth We Trust]

8. Then sit back and watch their heads explode!

[BurtWorm]

15. Here's a real winger's response to this very question!

You can tell it's from a real winger by the lack of intelligence it exhibits:

"Then we should pose to the dolts, what is the difference between a democrat and a socialist ??? I certainly cant find any !!!

"(BTW, Hitler's LEFT wing Nazi party had socialist roots ... ... http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERnazi.htm )"

[kwolf68]

34. ARRRRRRRGHHHHHHH

I hate it when these idiots say Hitler was a socialist, because its a load of crap.

If Hitler was a socialist, WHY WAS THE SOCIALIST PARTY one his biggest opponents? Why were socialists detained and placed into camps? It was SOCIALISTS most up in arms against Hitler and it was SOCIALISTS WHO DID NOT vote for him in the Reichstag elections.

NSDAP may have had “Socialist” in its name, but that is NO DIFFERENT than calling your environmental policy a “Clear Skies Initiative.”

Monikers are part of the propaganda. Hitler knew that he could obtain power by the trappings of a “socialist paradigm” in that the German people wanted some of the policies of the socialists.

However, what Hitler really was about was NATIONALISM, IMPERIALISM, and HEGEMONY. Toss in propaganda, overt racism, unbridled religious intolerance, and a devoted militarism (where German soldiers were nearly deified) and you have the witches brew of Nazism.

I have done more than enough research into the truth of the NAZI movement and there is absolutely NO evidence of fact to suggest that NAZISM was anything other than a decidedly right-wing ideology. Merely because someone wishes not to be associated with a fascist tyrant doesn’t mean they aren’t.

[mattclearing]

16. Wouldn't that first question baffle anybody?

It's like, "What's the difference between a cent and a penny?"

Values are rules that people live by, their beliefs regarding right and wrong.

Ethics are the rules that people work by, their beliefs regarding right and wrong.

They are damn near the same thing.

[demwing]

18. Very simple answer

Morals are the way in which we perceive, either as individuals or as groups, right and wrong behavior.

Ethics are the rules we establish in order to uphold those morals.

On Edit: Exta Credit - "Values" are those abstract things (gold is not a value, but the pursuit of wealth might be) which we rank highly on the scale of relative worth.

[dave123williams]

21. You get a gold star for your correct answer :)

[GOPBasher]

20. Those are really good! But I have an easier way.

Ask them what 6 + 7 is. That'll usually get'em.

[DemoTex]

22. My dogs sense of smell amazes me, but it doesn't amaze my dog.

Likewise, right-wingers' breadth and depth of stupidity and ignorance amazes me, but - you guessed it - they remain clueless.

[Skittles]

26. that's a good analogy

nt

[seaj11]

32. LOL!

I don't talk much to conservatives, but that made me laugh. Thanks!

[DinahMoeHum]

36. LMAO !! Suckers bet.

:evilgrin:

[Moloch]

39. .

:kick:

[SOS]

43. To finish the job

ask them to find Iraq on a map.

[VioletLake]

45. Tell them that the U.S. is

a federal democratic constitutional republic - a product of a political philosophy called liberalism.

Tell them that the purpose of American conservatism is to conserve the above.

Help them understand that when "conservatism" promotes political philosophies other than the one it claims to conserve, it ceases to be conservatism. The natural dichotomy in any political framework is between conservatism and progressivism. When one side becomes other-than-ism, the framework itself is being contested.

Ask them why they're supporting the overthrow of the framework that Americans have toiled over for 228 years.

Tell them that there aren't too many real conservatives left in America; progressives are doing most of their work.

Tell them what fascism is.

Tell them to stop being so fucking un-American.