[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Adultery is not illegal in a civilised society, but it fails the first moral test because people expect others to keep their promises - why else make them?There is no moral principle involved if you want to go to jail because that decision per se doesn't affect anyone else.

There are societies that don't restrict the number of one's spouse. In this case no promise is broken by having other lovers.
So your rules don't work for someone who don't mind going to jail.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

What makes you think that following your rules are right or good?

I don't need to. And they aren't rules but tests: I ask the question and leave the respondent to decide whether his proposed action is justifiable .

What makes ignoring or violating them wrong or bad?

They are tests, not rules, of justification (benefit/cost). 

How can someone without a wife follow your second rule, e.g. kids, bachelors? or someone with more than 1 wife?

It's never been a problem but the question can be adapted to suit the circumstances. I had an enthusiastic inventor wanting to trial his intravaginal ultrasound probe. I thought the electrical and thermal insulation were inadequate, so rather than argue about it, I said "stick it up your arse and switch it on". We never saw him again.

Your first test is called golden rule, in case you forgot.

There is no theoretical limit to what we might do in the guise of science, but a lot of what Nazi and Japanese scientists did in the 1930s and 40s, and quite a bit of what went on in the civilised world in the 1950s, would not pass either of the moral tests I have set out in this thread:

1. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

2. Would you do this to your wife?

so various august bodies in Geneva, Helsinki and elsewhere tend to exercise themselves with questions of the morality of scientific endeavour.

Science and engineering have come a long way in the last 100 years, to the point that we rarely ask "can we?" and are beginning to ask "should we?" more frequently.   

Why "universal"?  Because whilst idiots try to divide the world with politics and religion, scientists like collaborating  with other enquiring minds, no matter where they live or what their parents did on Sunday.

Golden rule inevitably implies that what's good for you is also good for everyone else, and what's bad for you is also bad for everyone else. In real life, we can find many counterexamples and loopholes which can be exploited for personal gain. People have different preferences. Some philosophers realized this and develop subjective/relative morality. But this morality is useless and can't be the basis for authorities and law makers to create rules to guide their people.

You also found a loophole, otherwise you won't add the second test as an attempt to close it. But this ad hoc patch can't close all the loop holes created by the golden rule. You need a more fundamental principle to build a consistent moral system.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

4, 5 and 6. Intentional random killing is against any recognisable moral code. Your motives and beliefs are irrelevant: you wouldn't want anyone else to kill you for his beliefs or pleasure, even if you are motivated to kill your wife, so they fail Test 1.

Tell that to Harry Truman.
Most terrorists usually believe that civilians in enemy's territory are supporters of their governments which enables them to oppress the terrorists' allies. Those civilians are regarded as enemies as well.
Religious terrorists usually don't mind being killed in their action. They believe that by being a martyr, they will get infinitely better life in the afterlife.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I have mentioned here many times before, that information has different significance, depending on its position in a system. In Deep Believe Network which models how conscious agents acquire information, accuracy of information located at higher layers of the hierarchical structure is highly important. That's because they can act as filters for new information coming from lower layers. New critical information could be falsely rejected when it's incompatible with existing information in the higher layers of believe network. That's why it's hard to convince conspiracy theorists that their theory has been disproven, or for religious people that their believe is irrational.

[alancalverd]

4, 5 and 6. Intentional random killing is against any recognisable moral code. Your motives and beliefs are irrelevant: you wouldn't want anyone else to kill you for his beliefs or pleasure, even if you are motivated to kill your wife, so they fail Test 1.

Tell that to Harry Truman.

WWII was unique in being a war of "attrition at a distance". In Europe and Africa the exceptional mobility of ground forces compared with previous conflicts depended on the quantity and quality of vehicles, which were manufactured by civilians thousands of miles away. Thus the English Midlands and the Ruhr Valley were as legitimate targets  as baggage trains had been since the ancient Greeks first organised land armies. Frontline tactics were important but equally balanced: the winner would be whichever side could continue to supply men and munitions as the fronts advanced, hence Atlantic and Baltic convoys and their own problems of attrition.

The mass displacement of civilians as a means to disrupt military operations, and the assumption that civilians were necessarily hostile, probably took root in the Spanish civil war.   

The Pacific war involved even greater distances and the Doolittle raid on Tokyo (1942) was a shambles. The Japanese balloon-borne bombs were a work of insane genius and brilliant engineering, intended to cause random civilian casualties in the USA.

I think there is a distinction between random civilians, civilians in support of armed troops, and collateral casualties  Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were important military supply targets and easily identifiable from high altitude, so ideal targets to demonstrate the ultimate weapon of attrition, economically delivered by a single aircraft. 

On August 6, the B-29 Enola Gay dropped a Little Boy on Hiroshima, an embarkation port and industrial center that was the site of a major military headquarters. Three days later, to take advantage of favorable weather, the B-29 Bockscar dropped a Fat Man on Nagasaki, a major military port, one of Japan's largest shipbuilding and repair centers, and an important producer of naval ordnance.

Kokura and Niigata were also selected targets but it was not necessary to bomb them.

Most terrorists usually believe that civilians in enemy's territory are supporters of their governments which enables them to oppress the terrorists' allies. Those civilians are regarded as enemies as well.
Religious terrorists usually don't mind being killed in their action. They believe that by being a martyr, they will get infinitely better life in the afterlife.

This needs a bit of unpicking. If you want to be a martyr, you can offer yourself as a sacrifice by personally offending someone else's sensibilities and asking them to kill you rather than convert you. That way, everybody is satisfied. Mutual informed consent overrides any third party view of morality, which is why the only moral objection to online casinos is in the use of the word "play" when the truth is "lose".

Terrorism has a patchy record of success. A few random killings certainly turned legitimate grievances into Irish independence, but their continuation in Northern Ireland resulted in misgovernment (at my considerable expense) by the spokesmen of organised criminals.  Religious terrorism has resulted in the disruption of air travel and the rearrangement of the rubble in Afghanistan for the umpteenth time. It isn't clear what has been achieved elsewhere apart from unjustified distrust and loathing of innocent civilians who happen to share the terrorists' declared superstitions.

But back to the plot. Would you be happy if I killed or injured you without provocation? Would you kill your nearest and dearest without enquiring about their religious beliefs? Failed on both moral tests, I think.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Kokura and Niigata were also selected targets but it was not necessary to bomb them.

Nagasaki was an alternative target. The original target was Kokura. It was changed due to bad weather.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

But back to the plot. Would you be happy if I killed or injured you without provocation? Would you kill your nearest and dearest without enquiring about their religious beliefs? Failed on both moral tests, I think.

No. But I have different reasoning. For me, golden rule is just an instrumental goal to help achieving the more fundamental and universal goal. It just happens that in this case they overlap, presumably due to an evolutionary process. In other cases where they don't, I will abandon golden rule and follow the universal moral rules instead.

[alancalverd]

Your alternative reasoning is unnecessary. I have demonstrated that the conundrum  you presented, can be resolved by my very simple tests, without making any assumptions about fundamental universal goals, and my resolution is consistent with civilised behavior.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Your alternative reasoning is unnecessary. I have demonstrated that the conundrum  you presented, can be resolved by my very simple tests, without making any assumptions about fundamental universal goals, and my resolution is consistent with civilised behavior.

Your tests, which are golden rule with a patch, cannot be universal because they only work for very specific situations. I've described their limitations in previous posts which you haven't addresed yet.
Here is another example. Some people are patriotic and willing to sacrifice themselves or even their own families to defend their country. Some others don't. They even deceive the government to prevent their family members from a war draft.

[alancalverd]

Sacrificing yourself is not a moral decision since it affects nobody else. Sacrificing your family may pass test 2 (you said you'd do it to your wife) but probably won't pass test 1 (you wouldn't like it if somebody else sacrificed you for his country).

In the words of General Patton "No goddam sonofabitch ever won a war by dying for his country. You win wars by making the enemy die for his." You would do well to defer to that expert opinion.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Sacrificing yourself is not a moral decision since it affects nobody else. Sacrificing your family may pass test 2 (you said you'd do it to your wife) but probably won't pass test 1 (you wouldn't like it if somebody else sacrificed you for his country).

In the words of General Patton "No goddam sonofabitch ever won a war by dying for his country. You win wars by making the enemy die for his." You would do well to defer to that expert opinion.

The sacrifice is not always means losing one's life. Risking one's life to go to war can already be considered a sacrifice.

You've just redefined morality to "something explainable by golden rule (and its patch)", hence other things unexplainable by them are excluded.
Let me remind you again the definition of morality according to dictionary:

principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.

[alancalverd]

And I have offered two tests that determine whether a proposed action constitutes good or bad behavior.

Sacrifice necessarily involves loss of something you hold dear and irreplaceable. Anything else is just "business".

[charles1948]

And I have offered two tests that determine whether a proposed action constitutes good or bad behavior.

Sacrifice necessarily involves loss of something you hold dear and irreplaceable. Anything else is just "business".

Is there any point to continuing these arguments.  They never come to any conclusion.  So why waste time on them?

[alancalverd]

Suit yourself.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

And I have offered two tests that determine whether a proposed action constitutes good or bad behavior.

Sacrifice necessarily involves loss of something you hold dear and irreplaceable. Anything else is just "business".

You haven't addresed the loopholes left by your tests. Do you really think that whatever is good for you is always good for everyone else?

A man rushes into a burning house to save a crying baby. His action risking his own life is considered a sacrifice, even when he doesn't end up dead.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Is there any point to continuing these arguments.  They never come to any conclusion.  So why waste time on them?

Perhaps you are not interested to this topic, but that's not a reason to hush others who are. You haven't found any conclusion doesn't mean others will fail too. Not so long ago reusable rocket was thought to be impossible, even by world's leading rocket engineers. But now it has been the norm. People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Let me remind you again the definition of morality according to dictionary:

principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.

Discussion of morality will inevitably compare many different situations, decisions, actions, and behaviors with many different results or consequences. Good behaviors are expected to bring good consequences in the long run. Comparing many possible results will show us the best case scenario as well as the worst case, and everything in between.
I've explore those scenario in another thread.

In this thread I've come into conclusion that the best case scenario for life is that conscious beings keep existing indefinitely and don't depend on particular natural resources. The next best thing is that current conscious beings are showing progress in the right direction to achieve that best case scenario.
The worst case scenario is that all conscious beings go extinct, since it would make all the efforts we do now are worthless. In a universe without conscious being, the concept of goal itself become meaningless. The next worst thing is that current conscious beings are showing progress in the wrong direction which will eventually lead to that worst case scenario.

In many religious beliefs, the best case scenario above is taken for granted. So their efforts are never directed towards achieving that. Instead, they set arbitrarily chosen preferred conditions as their terminal goal.
On the other hand, the worst case scenario is dismissed without adequate justification. This creates false security that whatever we do, it is guaranteed that the consequences will never bring that worse case scenario.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The best case scenario can be used as a lode star to guide us making decisions in various situations, and setting up rules to be applied in most frequent situations. Many moral rules rely on Pareto principle. Many decisions must be done quickly. Those moral rules are useful as shortcut for processing information which can take too long to simulate all options and their consequences. 

[alancalverd]

Do you really think that whatever is good for you is always good for everyone else?

I haven't suggested that. Test 1 is essentially negative: would you be happy if I did whatever you are proposing, to you?

A man rushes into a burning house to save a crying baby. His action risking his own life is considered a sacrifice, even when he doesn't end up dead.

[ No. The action is considered a risk, and any harm he suffers as a result may be considered a sacrifice in retrospect, but he didn't intend to get injured. He might sacrifice a kidney to save a life, or sacrifice a chicken to the rain gods. Sacrifice involves intentional loss or harm.

Right now I am studying the ethics of a proposed experimental surgical intervention. If the hypothesis is correct, the outcome will be better than standard treatment: if the hypothesis is incorrect, the outcome will be no better. But the risk of permanent and serious  disability is increased by the additional intervention. I need to go through the probabilities with the surgeon and assess his team's level of confidence in their own skill. I propose Test 1 on the probabilities and Test 2 on their skills.   

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I haven't suggested that. Test 1 is essentially negative: would you be happy if I did whatever you are proposing, to you?

That's the logical implication of golden rule, unless if what you want is not necessarily good. But then it will be detached from morality as we commonly define it.

Yes, as long as it is scientifically demonstrated to have the consequences which help achieving the best case scenario.