Eightcrackers
Well-known member
No, because it does not harm them.
Fancying another man's wife vs chattel slavery
- Thread starter The Pixie
- Start date
Do you factor in mental and emotional harm?
stiggy wiggy
Well-known member
So the thoughts of "Damn I hate ni**ers and I'd sure like to lynch a few," by a KKK klansman sitting alone in his jail cell are not immoral thoughts?
Lucian
Well-known member
This seems an odd position. Fantasising about having sex with infants is plainly immoral, but doesn’t, in itself, harm anybody.
In general, we morally evaluate people for their attitudes, dispositions, desires, intentions, and so on. The fact that these often don’t lead to harm is neither here nor there, besides which there are actions that don’t result in harm that are clearly immoral (cheating on your wife when she doesn’t find out, for instance).
Eightcrackers
Well-known member
Yes - if I hate you, how are you harmed in any way?
Eightcrackers
Well-known member
No, it's not.
The act is immoral.
Only in so far as these things influence actions.
Not least because, unless these things are acted upon, we would never know what they are.
I could be harmed by your words you type.
If I were married to you, I would be harmed by hateful words and a cold, dead marriage unless you were the master of hiding your true feelings which is highly doubtful.
Would you consider buying materials in which you could watch the act immoral?
Eightcrackers
Well-known member
Eightcrackers
Well-known member
If children were harmed in the production, yes, because you are perpetuating that harm.
stiggy wiggy
Well-known member
So thinking to oneself all alone as to how great it would be to "lynch all the ni**ers in the world" is NOT an immoral thought? And you ignored Lucian's question as to whether adultery unbeknownst to the wife is immoral.
Eightcrackers
Well-known member
No such thing as an immoral thought, only a thought about an immoral action.
No black person is harmed by the thought you suggested.
I define immorality to include motive as well - if the action would cause harm.
stiggy wiggy
Well-known member
OK, so you see nothing immoral about thinking all blacks are scum who need to be lynched. It might be best for you to keep that belief to yourself.
Eightcrackers
Well-known member
Correct.
A thought harms nobody, and so cannot be immoral; there is nothing immoral about thinking anything.
What belief?
mikeT
Well-known member
If that's what he sees, then he's correct. Morality is simply "principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior".
Thinking isn't behavior.
stiggy wiggy
Well-known member
Your belief that there is nothing immoral about hoping that all blacks would be lynched.
stiggy wiggy
Well-known member
So you TOO see nothing immoral about wishing that all blacks would be lynched. Any other atheists agree?
For an atheist morals are based on opinion that changes with the times and culture.
Thinking influences behavior.
Eightcrackers
Well-known member
But thinking is not behaviour.
Saying that we should consider thoughts immoral because they can influence behaviour is like saying that holding a knife is immoral because all stabbings start with the stabber holding a knife.
mikeT
Well-known member
Seems pretty clear Christians are faced with the exact same problem, with changing opinions about the morality of slavery being a salient example. However, let's sidestep that debate and accept it for the sake of conversation. You followed it with this:
So does oxygen. Genetics, too. Can we therefore label each moral or immoral?
No. Morality is principles about the rightness/wrongness of behavior. Thinking isn't behavior, and neither are oxygen or a person's genetic makeup. Just because X influences Y doesn't make X and Y equivalent.