At 07:43 PM 8/3/2008, Rev. Stewart Marshall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Sociology 101 Morals = Ethics.
Extant mammals = Unicorns. I gave you examples of clearly unethical
behaviors that might have been "moral," assuming morals exist, but, rather
than consider them on their merits, such that you could see and/or reflect
upon the distinction between morals and ethics, you ignore all of that and
rely, instead, on what is clearly, to me, anyway, a falsehood. I can't help
it if lots of people got together, including sociology textbook authors and
publishers, including the editors and publishers of dictionaries, including
those who post, and contribute to, Wikipedia, and agreed among themselves
that something is the case when, in reality, it isn't. I submit that
aphorisms in the culture like, "To thine own self be true," and "Be sure
you're right, then go ahead," are reminders that (at least some of us in)
the culture recognize(s) that morals and ethics are separate and distinct,
even if they frequently overlap.
The Wikipedia entry specifically said "individual conscience," which
is where I was going, and it also seemed to limit the scope of morality to
what it called "matters of right and wrong." But before you can take even
two steps down THAT road, someone like me will ask, quite properly, "Right
and wrong for whom? Right and wrong according to what?" Any answer which
invokes some commonly held set of beliefs about how we should treat each
other, or how we "should" behave "in this culture," yanks you out of morals
and shoves you into ethics.
BTW, I got an A in Sociology 101 (and also in every other sociology
and criminology course I took, which makes me just extra-special,
super-duper smart), and my textbook didn't say any such thing. It did,
however, talk about the relationship between the members of a society and
the ethos which they create. I was encouraged by my professor (1) to
separate that which is observable from that which isn't, such that I would
(2) not draw conclusions about the relationship a person has with himself,
which isn't observable (and isn't even in the field of sociology), from the
relationships he has with others, which is observable (and is the nuts and
bolts of sociology). It's a real shame that your sociology course/professor
didn't require the same intellectual rigor from you that mine demanded of
me. 33 years after the fact (Summer session, 1975), I am more in her debt
today than I was then.
Sociology = The scientific study of human interaction.
The relationship a person has with himself, which is where morals
lie, assuming they even exist, isn't "human interaction," as contemplated
by this definition, since "interaction" means that more than one person
must be involved. How a person gets along with himself (morals) isn't the
same thing as how he gets along with others (ethics). End of story.
Or maybe only the beginning.
Bob
Jaco Pastorius: "Bo be boo bop doo bay."
OK
End
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