Consider the case of psychopath oral surgeon. He puts a woman under, fixes her teeth, undresses her, molests her and puts her clothes back on. He then wakes her up. The woman wakes up none the wiser. He didn’t physically injure her. He received sexual gratification.
Now if we assume the following about our moral view:
1) maximizing happiness is the goal of morality.
2) sexual gratification is as a form of happiness
would this be a good thing for the orthodontist to do?
You might say he will feel guilty, but he is a psychopath and so will suffer no guilty feelings. Does his lack of guilt make the act better?
I am also curious if people accept the 2 premises of the morality I present. Perhaps they need to be reworded.
edit:
Just to clarify. By “happiness” I do not mean to limit it to epicurean moralism at all. The term for happiness here can be much broader and even mean the equivalent of the Greek word eudaimonia which is usually translated as happiness. This can mean well being or human flourishing.
Of course, in this hypothetical the definition of “happiness” “wellbeing” “human flourishing “must place value sexual gratification (which I think the vast majority of secular humanists do) but “happiness” isn’t intended to be limited to that or limited to purely pleasure and pain. I hope that clarifies and explains why the hypothetical applies to many more moral systems.
True and Reasonable 
Hey T&R, I think the secular humanist response would be that non-consensual sex dehumanizes, therefore is morally equivalent to raping the victim during awake states. Also, another premise could be added to this Epicurean moralism: there are justified restraints to attaining one’s happiness. For example, it may be that this behavior is actually bad for the orthodontist’s psychological health, therefore even though it offers a burst of heroin, it is justified to restrain oneself from it.
Just a few thoughts.
Thanks for your response.
Just a couple of points to clarify. By happiness I do not mean to limit it to epicurean moralism at all. The term for happiness here can be much broader and even mean the equivalent of the Greek word eudaimonia which is usually translated as happiness.
Of course, in this hypothetical happiness must include sexual gratification (which I think the vast majority of secular humanists do) but it doesn’t have to be limited to that.
As for this being the same as rape when the victim is awake I think its clear that when the victim is awake they suffer. Here the victim is not even aware what happened and so it]s very hard to say how she suffers in mental or physical sense. My point is we have to include some concept that seems to trump the notion of just maximizing happiness. I think we have to acknowledge this idea of human dignity that seems to trump these happiness formulations.
Finally. as far as concern for his psychological state. He is a psychopath. Psychopaths are pretty much immune to any of the psychological guilt normal people would suffer. So it’s hard to see how he would be psychologically hurt in this case. For my purposes though we don’t need to speculate. We can just say assume his psychological make up was effectively unchanged. I am fairly sure that any psychologist who regularly deals with psychopaths would agree that this is almost certainly at least a possibility.
But let’s say I am just dead wrong and all the psychologists who are experts in this field decide to read my blog and come in and say yes this action would cause the psychopath some sort of guilt/suffering. I would still ask is that what the morality of this turns on? If the person felt no guilt then it would be not only acceptable but morally good?
Again we need my point is to ask how strong is this maximizing happiness view of morality? Is it self-evident that it forms the basis of morality? Is it just another idea that is thrown into the mosh and then people can chose how and when to apply it?
I went back and read the Humanist Manifesto I and then version III. I must confess that I was wrong! They don’t have a moral framework to say this is wrong, at least not explicitly. As long as the unconscious rape victim does not get pregnant or physically injured or an STD and the orthodontist does not harm himself, it’s perfectly fine by the HMIII as far as I can tell.
“. . . my point is to ask how strong is this maximizing happiness view of morality? Is it self-evident that it forms the basis of morality? Is it just another idea that is thrown into the mosh and then people can chose how and when to apply it?”
This view is hugely problematic on a societal scale, not just because there are disagreements about the endpoint, but because there are huge limitations in determining what works. That’s why economics is almost not a science at all compared to physics. So, yes, absolutely this is just another idea thrown into the mosh that is often subjectively and dubiously applied.
I saw your response to Travis and let me add one thing. In medicine the value of autonomy is placed above well-being in many instances. If a cancer patient refuses treatment, we do not strap them down and infuse chemotherapy. But, this certainly does not flow from utilitarianism. It’s an ordering of values that might fit better with deontological or some other description of morality.
If a child is diagnosed with leukemia and the parents refuse treatment, health officials will get a court order to override the will of the parents. So, autonomy is dependent on competency. But, again, I’m not sure there is any sort of utilitarian framework to back any of this up. The parent’s may be quite upset and the child in the long run may be quite happy. How are we going to measure all of the effects to calculate eudaimonia? That’s the central problem as I see it.
I may have come across the Humanist Manifesto but I am not intimately familiar with it. But this view of maximizing happiness and reducing pain as the begin all and end all of ethics is not at all uncommon.
Its important to note that the orthodontists behavior would not just be “fine” like its “fine” to wear a blue suit or a gray suit. It is actually good that he acted this way. According to this standard the world is a better place thanks to his actions.
I agree with the rest of your post it can get very tricky. Imo ultimately in ethics we are going by our intuitive feelings/beliefs more than any strict logical or scientific analysis. Logic and science can be helpful at times but they are really no help with those initial critical questions like *how much* should autonomy, or happiness, or human rights play a role. Nor can they be central in how these terms are defined.
I agree with you.
You can google the Humanist Manifesto and read it for free. It takes maybe all of 15 minutes and it’s quite illuminating.
I’ve reached a point where I seriously doubt that there are any utilitarian moral frameworks for which there are no hypotheticals that run counter to our moral intuition. This hypothetical is an example for “happiness utilitarianism” but I don’t get the impression that this is a common framework. I more often see something like Sam Harris’ “population well-being” utilitarian framework, in which case the example proposed here doesn’t work because people who do things like this are apt to disregard other people’s wishes and autonomy with such frequency that it degrades the well-being of society as a whole. So you don’t just look at actions on an isolated basis, but rather at how they relate to all players across time. It’s an impossible moral calculus but it does seem to be more capable of integrating these kinds of cases.
Hi Travis thanks for your comments.
When I used the word “happiness” in this example I meant it in a much broader sense than just physical pleasure. When people suggest that morality is all about happiness they usually mean eudaimonia which is the Greek word that Aristotle used and is usually translated as happiness. But the word connotes more than what we usually mean by happiness. It connotes well being, and human flourishing as well. I didn’t use the Greek word because I don’t want this to be just about what Aristotle thought. But I see that I should have clarified and so I edited the post. So yes it can mean a definition that includes “well being.”
But you make another point or really potentially several. You say:
“I more often see something like Sam Harris’ “population well-being” utilitarian framework, in which case the example proposed here doesn’t work because people who do things like this are apt to disregard other people’s wishes and autonomy with such frequency that it degrades the well-being of society as a whole. So you don’t just look at actions on an isolated basis, but rather at how they relate to all players across time. It’s an impossible moral calculus but it does seem to be more capable of integrating these kinds of cases.”
Now your first here would be the difference between wellbeing and happiness. I hope I addressed that above.
The second point is this notion of autonomy. Is concerns for people autonomy trumping concern for well being? If that is the case then he seems to be reaching for something much less concrete. If that is the case I am not sure his formulation that the good is “population well-being” is any more informative than saying the good is that which we do when we act rightly.
But you seem to suggest something else the third point is this. You seem to suggest that maybe because this person did this it might lead him to do similar things in the future. Maybe the person is prone to do things like this in the future and in those future times it would likely cause suffering. Therefore this act is bad for that reason. But that is clearly adding more to the hypothetical. What if right after leaving the office both the orthodontist and the woman were killed in car accidents? Would that make the action good?
Perhaps I am missing or misconstruing your or Harris’s point. But in the end I think with Harris the concern might be that in other similar cases that people who “do things like this” either the orthodontist will be suffer some guilt or the woman will learn what happened.
But it’s interesting that this sort of turns morality on its head doesn’t it? I mean we tend to think the orthodontist should feel guilty, and the woman should know.
First, let me say that I’m not personally endorsing this view, just trying to articulate my understanding of it. I think that your clarification of well-being sufficiently addressed that aspect.
I think that autonomy would be considered part of well-being given the extent to which we highly value autonomy and find ourselves psychologically distressed when it is taken away.
I think that the framework is understood in a probabilistic sense. It isn’t enough to say that an individual case is an exception and so obtains a different moral property. Instead, the probabilistic outcome needs to be examined and if the cumulative effect, given a sufficient sample size, is negative then it is wrong regardless of the actual outcome in that instance.
I think you’d be interested in a recent series of interactions I had with someone on these things over at Brian Blais’ blog (see one, then two).
Hi Travis,
Would you consider yourself a utilitarian?
No. I was just taking that position for the sake of argument in this thread.
Would you consider yourself a deontologist or a virtue ethicist?
No. I think I still agree with everything I said here: https://measureoffaith.blog/2016/10/24/moral-ontology/
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By prior agreements, the woman has a right to control access to her body. For example, the oral surgeon cannot enter her home at night and fix her teeth without her permission. So, it would certainly be wrong if he does anything other than fix her teeth when she is in his office for that purpose.
“Rights” derive from “how things ought to be”.
“How things ought to be” derives from consideration of what rules will produce the best good and least harm for everyone. That’s the only meta-ethic that everyone ultimately can agree to.
Prior agreements? There is no express agreement in the hypothetical and I don’t think there is any express agreement in the typical visit to an oral surgeon.
Are you saying that they all agreed to live according to the law of whatever government they live under? Therefore he would have agreed not to do this since it was illegal?
If so are you not just saying then that whatever the law says is what is moral and we can agree to whatever morality we want? This is, of course, the Nazi defense.
If we want a morality that we understand as not just being whatever the law is then it seems we need to look at this action by those standards.
Marvin:
” “How things ought to be” derives from consideration of what rules will produce the best good and least harm for everyone. That’s the only meta-ethic that everyone ultimately can agree to.”
I think that depends on what you mean by good and harm. If you say sexual satisfaction is a good then it was morally required for him to do this in this case. It brought about no harm and he achieved a good. The hypothetical is clear he received pleasure and she received no harm. But it is still IMO obviously unethical. But I am a Christian so I tend to think sexual conduct is often “not good” even if there is no identifiable harm. Moreover I think people *should* suffer some harms such as guilt – and not just because it will deter but because it is just.
Now an atheist can take that view as well. And indeed I used to think atheists could construct such moral systems based on reason. I would say oh well I want to say I have these rules and these pleasures are good unless there is a clear harm caused by them. But then I would look at cases like this – and numerous others. And then I would say well Ill make an exception here because of _____. But after a while and being perfectly honest with myself I accepted what I was doing. I had no actual principled/reasoned moral view I was really just rationalizing my gut urges.
Brain studies show that I am not alone in this. People have the emotional response and then they use the reasoning parts of their brain to rationalize their emotional response. It is not the other way around. It is not as though they use reasoning according to some rational system and then once they are convinced by reason they have an emotional response against those unreasonable people who don’t accept their same moral views.
I would ask anyone reading this hypothetical to honestly evaluate their thinking in the same way. Are you really following your model of achieving pleasures/goods and avoiding suffering/harm? Or are you actually rationalizing your own emotional views with the facade of a rational system?
The prior agreements include the one to Constitute the state and federal governments (“and to protect these rights, governments are instituted” Jefferson). The Legislature then passes laws forbidding conduct that infringes certain rights that we have also agreed (via the legislature) to respect and protect for each other. These are our legal rights. (See my posts “What is Justice?” and “Where do Rights Come From?”)
And they include the right not to be assaulted or raped. The constitutions also provide the systems of justice (courts, police, prisons, etc.) we use to protect and restore rights that have been broken.
So, by prior agreements among us, the oral surgeon’s rape of his patient while she under anesthesia is a crime.
We came to that agreement because we believe we are all better off if we respect and protect a “right not to be raped” for everyone. Our moral goal is to avoid unnecessary harm to these rights that we seek for ourselves and each other.
Conscience is a separate source of legislation and justice. But it is also the source of our social agreements. The problem is that what one person’s conscience may allow, another person’s conscience may condemn. That’s why we embrace democracy as a tool to provide a set of “working rules” that the community can use for a time, get some actual experience with, and revisit for modification and improvements later.
Where does conscience get it’s judgment from? Well, we get the current social conventions (agreements) from parents and teachers. But we also get the exchange of ideas and judgments from others and their perspectives. Moral progress proceeds slowly over time as our knowledge of outcomes of one rule versus another is improved.
Justice seeks to restore and rebalance everyone’s rights. A “just” penalty would naturally seek to (a) restore the rights of the victim by repairing the harm done, (b) correct the future behavior of the offender, (c) protect the rights of society against further harm until the offender’s behavior is corrected, and (d) assure the offender’s right to a just penalty by doing no more than is reasonably necessary to restore, correct, and protect.
Anyways, that’s how I view the problem. There were two issues that brought the problem of justice to my attention. The first was the consideration of whether Hell as eternal torture could be justified after my father murdered a woman and committed suicide (to my mind it cannot). The second was when I was chairman of the Honor Court at Richmond Professional Institute (now VCU), and whether expelling a student on the first cheating offense could be justified (nope, so we changed it from an “Honor Court” to a “Student Court” to model it after normal judicial systems).
Marvin:
“The prior agreements include the one to Constitute the state and federal governments (“and to protect these rights, governments are instituted” Jefferson). The Legislature then passes laws forbidding conduct that infringes certain rights that we have also agreed (via the legislature) to respect and protect for each other. These are our legal rights. (See my posts “What is Justice?” and “Where do Rights Come From?”)”
Joe:
I read your posts and enjoyed them.
You and I have pretty much opposite views on Jefferson’s statements. I think Jefferson is right when he says we were endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. (you think that was wrong)
I think Jefferson was wrong when he says everyone agrees to be governed by the laws of the legislature. I know I never reached such an agreement. In fact I will specifically say I do not agree to follow the laws of the state if doing so violates morality.
Now do I give the laws some respect? Yes of course. But the laws are in no way any sort of moral guide IMO. They are the will of politicians who passed them to keep their job. I am glad we have laws but that does not mean I agree to follow laws that are unjust.
That said moral obligations can arise from agreements. We are morally obligated to keep our promises. But it is certainly not the source of all morality.
Marvin:
“And they include the right not to be assaulted or raped. The constitutions also provide the systems of justice (courts, police, prisons, etc.) we use to protect and restore rights that have been broken.
So, by prior agreements among us, the oral surgeon’s rape of his patient while she under anesthesia is a crime.
We came to that agreement because we believe we are all better off if we respect and protect a “right not to be raped” for everyone. Our moral goal is to avoid unnecessary harm to these rights that we seek for ourselves and each other.”
Joe:
Again it is obviously false that everyone agreed to the laws. I was simply born in this country and never agreed to follow all the laws that might be passed by the legislature. I certainly agree with the ideals of our constitution and it is obvious that sometimes the supreme court does not follow that law. Do I agree to follow the supreme court no matter how blatantly they ignore the constitution? No. Do I think the constitution supports the idea that the supreme court has the power to interpret the constitution? Yes but interpret does not mean to completely rewrite. So none of this even clear enough to be a real agreement.
Marvin:
“Conscience is a separate source of legislation and justice. But it is also the source of our social agreements. The problem is that what one person’s conscience may allow, another person’s conscience may condemn. That’s why we embrace democracy as a tool to provide a set of “working rules” that the community can use for a time, get some actual experience with, and revisit for modification and improvements later.”
Joe:
By “improvement” do you mean helps us act better? That seems to suggest you agree there is a way we really should act and these improvements move us closer to that.
Marvin:
“Where does conscience get it’s judgment from? Well, we get the current social conventions (agreements) from parents and teachers. But we also get the exchange of ideas and judgments from others and their perspectives. Moral progress proceeds slowly over time as our knowledge of outcomes of one rule versus another is improved.”
Joe:
So again you seem to agree there is moral progress and therefore real morality. I think we can agree on that.
Marvin:
“Justice seeks to restore and rebalance everyone’s rights. A “just” penalty would naturally seek to (a) restore the rights of the victim by repairing the harm done, (b) correct the future behavior of the offender, (c) protect the rights of society against further harm until the offender’s behavior is corrected, and (d) assure the offender’s right to a just penalty by doing no more than is reasonably necessary to restore, correct, and protect.”
Joe:
I think that is pretty much it, and can be summed up by saying there are three basic goals of criminal law. Deterrence, rehabilitation, and retribution. I think retribution is the cornerstone. At least if it is properly understood as making the punishment fit the crime.
Marvin:
“Anyways, that’s how I view the problem. There were two issues that brought the problem of justice to my attention. The first was the consideration of whether Hell as eternal torture could be justified after my father murdered a woman and committed suicide (to my mind it cannot).”
I am sorry for you and all the people involved in that horrible situation. As a Catholic we never claim to know who would deserve hell. I tend not to think of it as “eternal torture” in any literal sense where there are torturers etc. I think much of the language of heaven and hell is figurative. For example, I don’t think heaven is literally above the head of people in Jerusalem when Jesus ascended into heaven. Nor was it below the feet of anyone in Oceania at the time.
Everyone who claims citizenship of a state or nation has tacitly agreed to its constitution, because without that agreement the state or nation would not exist, nor would the citizenship.
Citizenship is conferred freely upon everyone born in the United States, since the newborn has no way to exercise a choice in the matter.
But any adult who chooses to remain here of their own free will has effectively “signed” the agreement. So, you are either a citizen of your nation, or some other nation, by your own choice and consent. And, whether or not you agree with every thing in the constitution or not, you have agreed to being held legally responsible for any acts that violate the nation’s constitution or its laws.
If you find some law so distasteful to your moral sense that you must conscientiously object to the extent that you disobey the law, then it is up to the nation or state to determine how to deal with you. In the U.S., for example, those with a religious objection to killing, even during war, are allowed to serve in a non-combatant role.
On the other hand, if you’re a political Libertarian who claims that taxes are theft, then the rest of us are still going to require you to pay your share of the bill for public services.
As to justice, there must be some moral objective that both justifies and limits retribution. Otherwise you end up with vengeance cycles like the classic feud between the Hatfields and McCoys. Someone once said that the problem with “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is that everyone ends up blind and toothless.
The moral objective of justice is to protect each other from harm. That limits the harm that can be done in the name of justice. The harm can only be justified if it is to repair harm or prevent harm. Any harm beyond what is reasonably necessary to do that cannot be justified. So, this philosophy of penalty, unlike retribution, is self-limiting.
The source of all morality is the desire to improve good and reduce harm for everyone. That is the objective by which any two rules are morally compared and judged.
It is even how we judge God’s rules and his conduct, since it is asserted strongly that he loves us and wants what is best for us.
Marvin:
“Everyone who claims citizenship of a state or nation has tacitly agreed to its constitution, because without that agreement the state or nation would not exist, nor would the citizenship.”
Joe:
I believe when people become citizens they have to make a pledge. But plenty of people like myself make no such pledge. I am certainly a citizen of the united states. I do not find anything objectionable in the wording of the constitution as currently worded but of course it could change – by the very terms of the constitution. If we amend the constitution to say we will all participate in a genocide I will not be part of that. I will also not revoke my citizenship.
Moreover not every country has had or has a constitution. Often the wording is vague and it is unclear what they should do when the constitution is violated.
In contract law we have a term called the meeting of the minds. That means that both sides to an agreement had to understand the precise terms of what they were agreeing to before there is an agreement. I can assure you there has been no meeting of the minds. Without a meeting of the minds there is no agreement. So for example does agreeing to the constitution mean you have to make cakes for gay marriages? Lots of people thought it did. The US supreme court thought different. If you thought it did mean you had to make cakes for gay couples the last time you claimed to be a citizen, now does that still count? Or are we agreeing to the constitution as we understand it even if the supreme court disagrees? If you say well no according to the constitution the supreme court decides the interpretation then every time the constitution means something we didn’t think it meant according to the supreme court do we have to re- agree? Or does our prior agreement retroactively mean whatever they now say?
I will say that I think all things being equal sure I will follow the law and I might even agree there is some moral compulsion to follow the law of the land. (I am of course moved by Socrates in the Crito https://www.pitt.edu/~mthompso/readings/crito.pdf)
But I do not agree that laws or agreements to follow the law is the root of of morality or justice. I reject that view.
Marvin:
“As to justice, there must be some moral objective that both justifies and limits retribution. Otherwise you end up with vengeance cycles like the classic feud between the Hatfields and McCoys. Someone once said that the problem with “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is that everyone ends up blind and toothless.”
Joe:
That is well put. I am glad you draw a distinction between vengeance and retribution. Retribution was actually a huge improvement on the ancient law that was based on vengeance. Yes now we see eye for an eye as often tough but at the time it would have been a moderation – often in the ancient times death and huge punishment was the response. I would agree that we have have evolved and Christ’s teaching helped us even look beyond these moderated laws to the true goal of life – love. Living out our life consistent with willing the good of others.
You don’t have to believe Christ was divine to appreciate that command and it makes our moral compass even more precise. I think understanding love as willing the good of others helps make it easier to understand the command. I may dislike many things about a person. But even so I can still will good for them. Maybe that will be for them to overcome whatever is causing them to act in a way that I find offensive. Of course that sounds sanctimonious. But I think if your intent is in the right place and you really just wish good for them for their own good then it is ok. Of course there are other ways to wish good for others, by praying for their success in life and genuinely hoping they are given and successfully pursue every sort of opportunity that can bring them the good life and peace etc.
Loving someone is more than just willing good to them. It also means respecting them and understanding they are made in God’s image. (and it is pretty clear that the oral surgeon does not have that understanding of the woman he molested. Even though he may have wished her no harm and even hoped good for her) But willing good to others is an important part of it.
Marvin:
“The source of all morality is the desire to improve good and reduce harm for everyone. That is the objective by which any two rules are morally compared and judged.
It is even how we judge God’s rules and his conduct, since it is asserted strongly that he loves us and wants what is best for us.”
Joe:
Saying to improve the good is morally good is not really helpful. Saying causing harm is not good is also not really helpful.
This hypothetical shows how evil is certainly possible even when it simply brings about pleasure (which seems good on the face of it) and no harm. So this hypothetical I believe shows that ethics is more than saying well being or avoiding harm etc. I agree that is often part of it. But we are called to do more than that.
Right, there is always the possibility that conscience and law will conflict. And what we choose to do in those cases will be a matter of personal conviction, but also a matter of expressing that conviction in a non-violent way. Again, that expression is morally judged as a matter of improving good and reducing harm for everyone.
We call something “good” if it meets a real need that we have, as an individual, as a society, or as a species. Life is distinguished from inanimate matter in that living organisms are motivated by biological needs and animated to find ways to meet those needs. At the most basic physical level are the needs required to survive.
So, we can say with some confidence that it is objectively good to do certain things, like feeding the hungry and caring for those unable to provide these basic things for themselves.
The phrase “real need” is used to distinguish needs from desires. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a useful outline of the levels of need, though it tends to be less black and white as you move up the pyramid.
My point is that “good” can be objectively defined for the most basic and simple things. And that offers the possibility that it might be objectively defined eventually for higher levels.
The case you raise as to whether a bakery must supply a cake for a gay wedding recalls a more serious case as to whether businesses in Southern states could deny to offer goods and services to black persons. If a man can be denied a meal in a “whites only” restaurant, and denied a job, and an education, and everything else that allows him to be self-sufficient, then his very life is being threatened.
No one is likely to die from the lack of a wedding cake. But to prevent the wide-spread discrimination as was practiced in the South, it is offered that the more moral principle would be that no business should deny service due to prejudice against a race. This same principle might be applied to discrimination due to prejudice about a person’s sexual orientation.
The moral question is how is the baker harmed by baking a wedding cake for two guys? And is that harm greater than the harm to all gays to whom he would deny service? And it is greater than the harm to the principle that all persons should be able to participate in the economy.
There is no harm in the hypothetical I have posted here either. And to the extent you think sexual satisfaction is a good there was a good. So by your view that morality is “a matter of improving good and reducing harm for everyone.” then what the oral surgeon did would be morally laudable.
As for the cake baker I think there is a difference between discriminating against people based on their actions and discriminating against them based on their immutable traits.
Certainly we saw in the last century people can construct whatever sort of morality they want, especially when they purposefully break away from Christianity.
Do you think we can learn lessons from those anti-christian regimes like the Soviet Union, Pol Pot, Mao, Nazis or North Korea?
The woman’s right not to be raped was violated. That harm outweighed any sexual benefit for her dentist. The fact that she was unaware of the harm, at the time, only means that the dentist escaped correction, and is likely to continue harming others. The dentist, having a functioning right hand, had alternative ways to achieve his benefit without harming others. So, his physical need could have been satisfied in other ways. Therefore, that is what he morally ought to have done instead.
I’m pretty sure that morality has been around long before the birth of Christ. I imagine that with the earliest hunter-gatherers, whenever there was sufficient food, there would be sharing, but whenever one had to fight to feed himself or his family, there was war.
And I would guess that every religion, and every social organization, has had benefits and deficits. This would seem to apply to Christianity as well as any other religion. And what the Bible has to say about a question often has to do with whose hand is holding it up and giving commands from the pulpit.
She wasn’t raped. And she didn’t even know anything happened. It had no identifiable effect on her. So it is very hard to say she was harmed in any normal sense of the term. If you want to say anytime something immoral happens that involves you then you must have been harmed then I think your definition is circular.
The fact that he could have gotten sexual gratification other ways does not mean he did not get sexual gratification from what he did. If we are to say that is a good then he got a good without any harm. And this according to you is morally commendable.
No one disputes that morality has been around before Christ. I am just saying Christ helped us understand what it demands of us.
As far as the morality of Christianity varying – I agree it can. But it also is somewhat identifiable. We can identify western values that have mostly been shaped by it.
Having sex with someone against their will is what we call “rape”. We do not permit it, because it is harmful to the victim’s rights. The right not to be raped is established by the rule that prohibits rape. Rights and rules are two sides of the same coin. Without the rule and its enforcement the right is rhetorical rather than practical.
And since God does not deign to protect that right, it is up to us to establish and protect that right through human law and its enforcement.
The moral evaluation that led to rape being defined as a wrongful act was probably initially a matter of the harm inflicted upon the person. Not only is there physical damage to her body, but also the possibility of pregnancy and disease, plus the psychological and emotional trauma and the subsequent fear of it happening again.
You keep suggesting that rape is harmless if she is unconscious and the act is performed carefully. I suspect the victim would disagree. The harm is that her right to control who she allows to enter her body is violated.
The dentist is not subject to punishment unless his actions are discovered. When his actions are discovered, the psychological trauma and subsequent fear of further violations will haunt and harm the victim.
So, are you still sticking to your narrative that no harm was done?
The hypothetical does not say he had sex with her. It says he molested her. He may have just felt her breasts while she was naked. That would be molestation but not rape. But even there we can say he just disrobed her for the purpose of looking at her naked body and did not otherwise touch her. It doesn’t matter it is still immoral even though there was no harm to her in any emotional or physical way.
You are trying to change the hypothetical to say she will discover this happened and then she will be harmed. But I am asking you to evaluate *this* hypothetical, not one you make up. And in *this* hypothetical she does not find out. She does not have emotional trauma she does not become pregnant or get a disease or anything like that. She never knows and she has no physical or emotional effects at all.
I am sticking to the narrative I set out in the hypothetical.
So you are now talking about harms “to rights” not to people? Of course if you broaden harm to include harm to abstract concepts then sure anything can be considered a “harm.” But then your definition just became so vague it is hard to see how it is at all helpful.
If I steal your wallet, then I have harmed you, even if I carefully picked your pocket and you never felt a thing.
To put her to sleep and undress her without her permission is a harm to her person and to her dignity and to her privacy and to her rights, even if there is no physical injury.
If you look up “harm” in Wiktionary you’ll find:
“1. physical injury; hurt; damage.”
“2. emotional or figurative hurt ”
“3. detriment; misfortune. ”
“4. That which causes injury, damage, or loss.”
If the dentist (“oral surgeon” if you’re going to be picky) unnecessarily harms someone, then that is a morally wrongful act.
If he needs to “get his rocks off”, then he may only do so using means that do not unnecessarily harm someone else. Otherwise, his action is morally wrong.
Now that I’ve given you the correct moral evaluation, I think its your turn to provide a Christian based explanation of whether the doctor’s behavior was moral or immoral.
Marvin what definition do you think fits here? No physical or emotional harm so one and two don’t apply. He did not bring her misfortune or detriment so 3 doesn’t apply. And no damage, injury or loss was sustained by her so 4 doesn’t apply either.
It has always been obvious to me that his conduct is immoral despite not causing any harm to her. So I am not sure what you think is correct about your moral evaluation if it is based on harm.
Of course his actions are wrong despite no harm happening to the lady. This is why your moral system is faulty.
You seem to want to try to stretch the normal meaning of harm beyond recognition so you can shoehorn some harm in here. But in the hypothetical even if she wasn’t harmed in anyway his actions were still immoral.
Well, if you insist that there was no harm, then what is your basis for declaring his behavior “morally wrong”? How will you distinguish what is morally right from what is morally wrong?
Since I believe we are not solely the product of a blind process but instead God played some role in our creation I think we have been given certain guiding intuitions that may be reliable about what is right and wrong. I also think we can consider scripture. Christ said not to even look at a woman with lust. Now perhaps that was hyperbole but even if it was hyperbole – an exaggeration – it was exaggerating a sin.
Shall I interpret “certain guiding intuitions” to be “if it feels good do it”? If not, why not? And I don’t recall any Biblical commandments that fit your oral surgeon’s indulging his fantasies with his patients.
Every man, by God’s design, lusts after women (except those who, by God’s design, lust after men).
No I would agree that the bible does not suggest he could morally engage in that conduct. As I indicated Jesus gave pretty clear direction it is immoral for him to do what he did. Morality is not just based on getting pleasures and avoiding suffering.
I do not think morality is based around if it feels good do it. We have different good feelings and some come about as authentic joy others are just worldly pleasures. Christians are usually taught we can and should distinguish between them. I think morality is built around agape – love – charity toward others. If we grow in love for each other we tend to grow in love of our creator.
The bible speaks to these different worldly goods quite a bit. The worldly pleasures are not always bad and they can be good but we are not meant to be enslaved to them. That is we should be in control not allow them to control us. That is the way God says we should act. We should follow Gods command to love each other even if that means we do not experience certain pleasures and must endure some suffering. Do you agree love and suffering can go hand in hand?
A sociopath has very little emotional suffering when they see others suffer. If it were really all about reducing suffering we would almost certainly all want to be sociopaths. That way only the person who is feeling the physical pain would suffer. Empathy is like a suffering magnifier. One person’s pain can suddenly make hundreds or even millions of people suffer.
I talk about this here:
https://trueandreasonable.co/2019/04/09/love-versus-selfish-emotional-empathy/
To the Christian morality is not all about avoiding suffering.
Let’s continue exploring your morality. God commands us to love one another. Please explain how that operates. How does one person agape love another person?
Excellent questions.
As a child a nun at my Catholic School told me to try to think about things you like about others. And to try to think about life through their eyes and think about the fact that they wonderful in God’s eyes and why that is. We would have to do this about people we loved and people we disliked. I have tried to do this with people throughout my life.
I think the loving kindness meditation is very similar (she may have worked from this) and can also be helpful.
https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/compassion_meditation
I also think focusing on how we can help others and being positive can be beneficial. Understand your relationships are important.
I think there is actually some empirical evidence to support the loving kindness meditation.
There are of course other things like meditating on scripture – especially the Gospels – which discusses many of the ways we can fall into selfishness and hatred of others. Jealousy, otherness/tribalism, contempt, etc. I think we can learn about how we fall into those pitfalls in our own lives and apply those teachings to get out from them.
Reminds me of my childhood. We had a checkoff list of things we should strive to do each day. One of them was to “Look for the good in others”, especially those you may have thought were bad.
In choir at the UU church we recently sang a “Metta Prayer” along the lines of “May I be well, May I find peace, etc.” The “I” would be replaced with “You” and “My friends” and most significantly, with “My enemies”. I almost laughed out loud with Trump came to mind.
But my question is looking for an operational description of how one agape love’s someone. And you can probably guess what I have in mind. If not, I’ll explain after your answer.
Do you mean like give to the poor and care for others? I’m not exactly sure what you are asking sorry.
Right. As in Matthew 25:35-40. The practical matter of agape love is doing good for someone, like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the prisoner, welcoming in the stranger. And it is also the “Good” shepherd finding the lost sheep and protecting all the sheep from harm. And the “Good” Samaritan rescuing the victim of assault and robbery.
The good (moral) person seeks “good” for (meeting the real needs of) others and seeks to lessen their suffering and to protect them from unnecessary harm.
It is how we would wish to be treated if we were them.
And the objective measure of the goodness or badness of an action or rule is the extent to which it increases the ability of everyone to obtain what they really need (that which is “good for” them) and/or decreases the harm and suffering that they endure.
I’ll have to admit that its been a long time since I read Eric Fromm’s “The Art of Loving”, but it was a big hit in my younger days.
Marvin I don’t deny that removing suffering is good. And you can point out many instances where removing suffering is good and I will agree. But that does not mean all morality is always a matter of suffering or its prevention.
Just like we can point out many mammals which are animals. But that does not mean all animals are mammals.
The example I give here is like pointing out that a bird is also an animal even though it is not a mammal. It is a case that shows morality can involve more than just suffering.
Good and harm are the objective measures of morality. Suffering is usually due to unnecessary harm. Pain is nature’s alert system advising you of possible harm. Good is something that satisfies a real need.
In your example, the oral surgeon is harming his patient. His “means” for satisfying his ends are wrong, because they cause unnecessary harm. That’s the standard for moral judgment.
If God instills this sense of right and wrong in us, then what is His criteria, if not to achieve what is good for us and to reduce unnecessary harm to us?
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