From: cash@convex.com (Peter Cash)
Subject: Re: frightening ignorance
Organization: The Instrumentality
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 21:11:10 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In article <LEE.92Jul21150034@meercat.wang.com> lee@wang.com (Lee Story) writes:
>In article <1992Jul20.174754.5253@news.eng.convex.com> cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes:
...
>   That's irrelevant to the question at issue (which is "Should morality be
>   taught in schools?"). Wright invites this mistake by suggesting that "all
...
>Well, perhaps you choose to make that narrow issue the only subject of
>this thread, but it appeared to me that Wright made two claims (common
>morality and the desirability of "instilling" it) which were more
>general, more interesting, and largely subsuming the question of whether
>we should instill it in schools.

Since I didn't see the original article, I can only go by what you quoted.
(Sorry, I should have made that clear.) 

>   Surely you don't expect children to _deduce_ for themselves what is right
>   and wrong, do you? Well, maybe you do; I suppose this kind of thinking is
>   fashionable in some circles.

>Nice condescending rhetoric, Peter, but children _do_ observe a larger
>society than that of one sandbox (per your amusing example), and it
>has appeared to me that they learn socially acceptable patterns of
>behavior by example, and very rarely through the explicitly didactic
>presentation of arbitrary moral "rules".  In that sense a kindly and
>hard-working teacher _is_ teaching morals in the school, and I'll
>thank her not to confuse the lesson with Judeo-Christian dogma.  I
>repeat: children "deduce for themselves" everything that they know or
>believe!

Teaching by example is indeed a good way to teach moral behavior; but when
children learn by example, then they are not "deducing by themselves". I
never said that lecturing was the only way (or even a good way) to teach
morality; I just said that it can be taught. 

Why do you bring up "Judaeo-Christian dogma"? I didn't bring it
up; morality can be taught--and understood--without reference to any
faith. Do you think that teaching morality is somehow the same thing as
teaching religion? 
...
>The parts of my previous post mentioning war and nationalism were
>(pretty clearly, I'd thought) meant to show by example what a terrible
>job our culture/society/whatever has done of teaching them "about not
>resorting to force when there is a difference of opinion."  Indeed,
>isn't its clearest lesson about the virtue and efficacy of such force,
>at least when you have "god" on your side.  Morality:  "Do unto others as
>you would have that they do unto you, except when you are told by
>someone in authority to bayonet or poison them."

I suppose you're arguing that teaching that war is morally permissible is
inconsistent with teaching that resolving conflicts by violence is wrong.
Maybe you're right. If you're right what follows from this? --Surely not
that teaching morality is impossible; just that it is sometimes taught
inconsistently. 

>   That's a hard job--it's hard not because it strains the brain to figure out
>   a "common morality",
>
>I notice you don't offer one (nor do any of those of you who insist that
>we already have one).  

What would it be like to "offer" a common morality? Are you thinking of a
set of rules? If so, then I would suggest to you that morality does not
consist in rules. To share a common morality means to have a common
understanding of what is and is not moral. This is not the same as having a
common set of rules. 

Let's go back to the sandbox. Sue hits Joe over the head with a shovel to
get his dump truck. I take Sue out of the sandbox and stand her in the
corner, and give Joe a hug to make him feel better. "Why did you do that?"
Sam (another adult) asks. 

"Well, Sue hit Joe over the head with her shovel," I explain, thinking that
Sam had not seen.

"Oh, I know!" says Sam. "But why did you punish her?"

I don't know what I will now say to Sam. Perhaps there is some bizarre
misunderstanding here. Maybe Sam thinks this was a sort of play, and Sue
was just pretending to strike Joe. On the other hand, maybe Sam thinks it's
just dandy to hit people over the head to get what you want--and he was
wondering why I would want to discourage such wonderfully sociopathic
behavior in a child. 

Certainly, it will not help if I say, "Well, Sam, we have this moral code,
you see, and there is a rule about not hitting other kids over the head
with a shovel." You can't settle this kind of dispute by making refernce to
to a rule, nor would it help Sam to understand if he memorized the rule. I
guess this comes under the heading of "if you have to ask, then you
wouldn't understand even if I could explain it."

>even were it easy.  And I won't be referred to a religion, since it seems
>more than arguable that in our diverse culture there is no absolute
>majority for any or all of them.

You seem to think that religion has a very important place in morality. As
I said, we should be perfectly capable of talking about morality without
reference to any religion. (And in fact, a Buddhist, Christian, Jew, and
Moslem will have far more agreements about moral matters than
disagreements.) 

>   but because kids are such fundamentally immoral
>   creatures.
>
>Well, I've raised three and known many others, and have found in my
>children at least as much consideration and fellow-feeling as in most
>adults evince (despite, or perhaps in resolution of, the occasional
>sandbox spat).  I suspect that this may be because their social
>accords are more direct (I'm tempted to use "genuine") solutions of
>real problems, and not merely lists of rules which are supposed to
>be "for the greater good" according to some long-dead and unquestioned
>prophet or demigod.

You really do have a thing about rules. Did Mrs. Grundy make you write on
the board a hundred times (like Bart Simpson), "I will not hit kids over
the head with a shovel"? This might, I suppose, have given you the
impression that there was some kind of rule to this effect. But is it wrong
to whack others because Mrs. Grundy says so, or does she say so because
it's wrong? (And not even Mrs. Grundy was wrong about _everything_, you
know!)

In my experience, kids are cute, and I love mine dearly. They are also 100%
selfish creatures; the capacity to have empathy comes only with maturity. 

>   Moral education isn't about the fine points--it isn't even about
>   things like adultery (or usury, for heaven's sake). It's about the
>   fundamental stuff--about the stuff that makes it possible to get along with
>   one another. Adultery and usury are corollaries of the Basic Moral Laws of
>   the Sandbox. 
>
>I agree in part (as above).  

Agreement! I'm delighted, Lee!

>I would argue that "corollary" is much too
>strong.  

It's also too formal-sounding. I should have said something like, "The
things you teach kids in the sandbox help them understand the more complex
moral issues later on."
...
>   >Taxation is
>   >viewed as theft (and thus "immoral") by some people on the net.  
>
>   Who gives a piffle what some people on the net think? Are you going to be
>   morally paralyzed because someone, somewhere, might disagree with you? 
>
>Absolutely not.  All I'd ask is that you give each person's views
>reasonable consideration before you claim that there already is a
>common morality.  

Some people's views aren't worthy of consideration--and I think you and I
would agree quite easily on who they are. 

>Viewing morality as interpersonal and social convention
>(no perjorative intended there---I do believe that such convention is
>a necessity to make this world bearable), I don't see it as wholly
>pre-rational or intuitive, and certainly not as "revealed" to the members
>of certain Abramic religions.  

Again, I have to read things into what you're saying here. You seem to be
saying that the opposite of the "rule-based" view of morality that you seem
to oppose is the view that morality is "mere convention". I don't think
that morality is as variable and as pliable as this view seems to imply. 

>Dahmer's viewpoint _should_ be represented, at least by a "devil's
>advocate", and rejected as dysfunctional.  Children should learn to
>reason to consequences, not merely to follow archaic codes.  (I'm getting
>redundant...oh well...)

Like I said, we're in fundamental agreement about who the bad guys
are...Strange, isn't it? 

>   >To abandon the
>   >attempt to slaughter the government-designated "enemy" is "desertion".
>   >To protect this enemy from fire is "treason".  These are capital
>   >crimes under military and civil law.  Many if not most students and
>   >their families accept these laws as being in accord with their moral
>   >sense.  Are you going to teach them to the contrary in your school?
>
>   I'm not sure I follow you. Are you a pacifist? If so, our laws
>   accommodate you.
>
>A peculiar notion of "accommodate".  If you simply don't fight, they
>merely jail you.  

Not if you get Conscientious Objector status. But I have to concede that
you're right--civil disobedience has a price. Again, I'm not sure what the
consequences of this are for the point we're arguing. 
..
>   In any case, I don't see how it follows from the fact that some folks
>   disagree about the role of military obligation in our society that no moral
>   education is possible. One can have moral disagreements within a society,
>   and still have a broad spectrum of moral agreement.
..
>Sure.  I can believe that I have a special mandate from a diety (or from
>the Greatest Nation On Earth) to exterminate you, and you can believe you
>must do the same to me; yet we can agree on every other element of our
>"morality".  So what?

People who agree fundamentally on moral issues have fought many wars. My
only point is that the existence of such wars does not make the common
moral ground disappear.
...
>...But having used the conflict between
>"thou shalt not kill" and usual social practice (war) as an example of
>the conflict in our supposed moral "teachings", I wanted to point out
>that the prohibition on killing might conceivably not be the best
>thing for social survival even in peacetime (i.e., that Wright's moral
>rule which he assumed we all agree with might actually be _wrong_).

There's always been a tension between our reluctance to shed blood and the
occasional necessity to do so. Our moral teachings (as expressed in various
ways, such as the commandment you're referring to) sometimes take note of
this tensions, and sometimes they do not. There's no necessary
contradiction between saying, "taking life is a bad thing", and saying,
"it's OK to defend your life, even if it means killing the other guy". You
can also argue that war is a kind of collective self-defense. (I didn't say
whether you would win, but you can argue it.) 
...
>   You think morality can't be (or shouldn't be) taught.

>I don't.  I _do_ think the utility of morality (though I'd really rather
>use a less religiously-loaded word like "ethics") can be _shown_.

Well, you know this is an old dispute. You must have really identified with
guys like Callicles and Thrasymachus in the Platonic dialogues, no?  "Morals
have their uses: they keep the masses in their place; but those who know
this don't have to pay 'em any mind." I sure hope I'm misrepresenting you.

>   If your way of thinking wins out (and given the intellectual
>   caliber of the people who run our educational institutions, this is quite
>   possible), we are going to cease to exist as a society in the near future. 
>
>"We...CEASE TO EXIST"?  "As a society"??  Forboding words which don't seem
>to meet your usual demands for clarity, Peter.  Do they mean "I'm afraid
>that if people actually think for themselves about important human
>interactions, instead of relying on received gospel, there will be a
>revolution of sorts"?  I don't see anything particularly bad about
>threatening your (and my) security like that.

No, I don't think there will be a revolution. I think there will be a
gradual failure of people to care about each other. People will start to
shoot each other in the streets over a pair of tennis shoes, our schools
will become war zones, and...Oh, pardon me, I'm too late. Know where I can
get a good deal on a case of .223 full metal jacket? 

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             |      Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist.     |
Peter Cash   |       (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein)      |cash@convex.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.philosophy.tech