Morals/ethics vs. ideals

nptype · Mar 18, 2020

Hi all,

This was originally part of another thread, but no-one replied there, and I also think this topic deserves its own thread.

----

I have Fi, about as much as Ti, but the thing is, that many ENFPs speak a lot about morals and values and about doing what is "right". Now, we all like to do what's right from one or more points of view or considerations, but I just don't recognise this "moralising" in myself. I do not think in terms of morals. In fact I feel morals and ethics just boils down to opinion -- we all have them and they seem "right" from our own perspective.

Maybe I think in terms of ideals instead of morals, if that makes sense? I don't care whether it is unethical/immoral to steal. But it is against my ideals, and against my opinions about what is generally acceptable, not to say honourable or noble, behaviour. My ideals are a more personal thing than morals typically seem to be. They are based more on my personal feelings (eg. I would feel bad about being stolen from) and theories (eg. society would not function if too many persons were stealing), including sympathetic (compassionate) concerns (eg. I may think that another person would feel bad about being stolen from).

Or maybe this is just a matter of terminology? Another term I can think of is "code of honour".

Regards,
Albert.

Red Panda · Mar 18, 2020

I think morals are not a F thing, but rather that each function gives a different moral perspective. The more emotional and human connection that F produces is only one side of the moral landscape and can produce negative results even with good intentions. Example of this is the christian morality of being too merciful or "turning the other cheek", or just general pacifism which can lead to self-destruction.

I guess the way I view morals is more in terms of where we are going as humanity and that's towards becoming intelligent. Sure it's my opinion that I want this to happen to us, but it's also a fact that we've been evolving for millions of years towards that and as we do, we also evolve morally. I see it as my responsibility to be as consistent as I can and constantly work towards that. Also how one understands moral behavior is tied to their personality and intelligence, there's an inevitable biological force in this, and evolution is slow.

edit: back to the morals = F things it's a mistake, prob produced by F being what one values, i.e. what they like or dislike. It's not about values = moral values.

nptype · Mar 24, 2020

Red Panda said:
I think morals are not a F thing, but rather that each function gives a different moral perspective.

Can you elaborate, perhaps with examples?

I agree that morals are not purely F.

-Albert.

Northern Lights · Mar 18, 2020

My experience is that when you already talk like this (i.e., in abstract terms) about the issue, you indeed aren't much in the F camp. Kantian reasoning (your stealing example) is the domain of T. So, the most simple reason why you wouldn't find this in you would be that you're not an F type, if that was your question. The TP, if you want to try in on for size, additionally to treating the matter of morality in the abstract (that is, thought-about), adds a million shades of grey. Nothing is ever absolute. Everything needs to be qualified, depending on context and circumstances. It creates a somewhat hopeless construct of relativity that, for all the flexibility if offers, has me every now and then looking with envy at people who have an unerring moral compass they can follow. I'm never sure, and always wondering.

nptype · Mar 18, 2020

Northern Lights said:
My experience is that when you already talk like this (i.e., in abstract terms) about the issue, you indeed aren't much in the F camp. Kantian reasoning (your stealing example) is the domain of T. So, the most simple reason why you wouldn't find this in you would be that you're not an F type, if that was your question.

It is a question I'm very interested in, yes.

Northern Lights said:
The TP, if you want to try in on for size, additionally to treating the matter of morality in the abstract (that is, thought-about), adds a million shades of grey. Nothing is ever absolute.

That sounds a lot like me. I call it perspectivism, but I'm not sure that is the proper use of this term.

Northern Lights said:
Everything needs to be qualified, depending on context and circumstances. It creates a somewhat hopeless construct of relativity that, for all the flexibility if offers, has me every now and then looking with envy at people who have an unerring moral compass they can follow. I'm never sure, and always wondering.

I don't feel I have that problem. Maybe that is because I have an FP-approach in addition to the TP-. Could be that I'm finding the relative harmony between the 2 perspectives, or could be because if one perspective is uncertain, the other will decide the question. I suppose there may well be situations where I'm uncertain from both perspectives.

-Albert.

MonarK · Mar 18, 2020

Whether it be ideals, a code of honor, or ethics, morals are the substance of all of these things. Ideals are the standards of morality by which we measure the integrity and virtuousness of an individual. The reason behind this right/wrong sensation that you experience is an amalgam of mores (societal level morality) and your conscience--your default discernment tool in understanding right from wrong. The variance behind such things are a cocktail of factors: how the individual was socialized, to a limited extent their personality, and before all other things, what decisions they make and what they set their mind upon. All of these factors lead to the understanding that perception enables ethics, albeit in a way that is not syndicated across all members of society. This does, however, mean that as ideals/virtues are to be cultivated, that morality is in fact standardized. The competition is not in what is right or wrong, but its individualistic pursuit.

When we go off of what we feel what is right or wrong, the aspects that are encompassed in this impulsive (it is seldom intuitive) decision-making is dictated by not only by the conscience and second nature mores; they are in competition with our human desires, which often clash with morality. What may seem logical may very well be destructive, and what seems benevolent may be malign. The right and wrong of any consideration may both be present at the same time; it is only through careful reflection that we can refine our ethics and come closer to our ideals. The fact that you have ideals in place certainly sets you in a good position, @nptype and remember to reach ever further for them through your ethicality--through the truthful understanding of morality.

nptype · Mar 19, 2020

MonarK said:
Whether it be ideals, a code of honor, or ethics, morals are the substance of all of these things.

Can you clarify what you mean by "substance"?

MonarK said:
Ideals are the standards of morality by which we measure the integrity and virtuousness of an individual.

I don't think ideals are "standard", it's more like morality is.

I think we measure people's virtuousness more by their actions than ideals.

MonarK said:
The reason behind this right/wrong sensation that you experience is an amalgam of mores (societal level morality) and your conscience--your default discernment tool in understanding right from wrong.

I don't feel anything that I'd describe as a "sensation" regarding right/wrong.

MonarK said:
The variance behind such things are a cocktail of factors: how the individual was socialized, to a limited extent their personality, and before all other things, what decisions they make and what they set their mind upon.

I'd say it's the other way around: conscience/morals determine decisions.

MonarK said:
The right and wrong of any consideration may both be present at the same time;

I agree on that.

MonarK said:
it is only through careful reflection that we can refine our ethics and come closer to our ideals. The fact that you have ideals in place certainly sets you in a good position, @nptype and remember to reach ever further for them through your ethicality--through the truthful understanding of morality.

I don't need to reach further for ideals -- I am already too much of a perfectionist, and that is in fact one of the problems I need to resolve.

-Albert.

Llyralen · Mar 18, 2020

I hear Ts sometimes hearing or being told that Fi doesn’t use reasoning or have reasons for things. We do, but we use a feeling-related reasoning (which is often called morals). For instance “i wouldn't steal because I can imagine what it would feel like to be stolen from”. That’s the ABCs of Fi. You know your own feelings and you imagine yourself into someone else’s shoes so you can feel what you would feel in that situation. And you do this starting at age 3 or less in my experience, and you take note when people have less feelings than you would have if you were in their situation. But often i stick with what I felt was the thing that was right, what I would feel. Not with what I observe for the other person. I actually believe noting these differences is the source of Fi’s inspiring nature.

I don’t mind the word “morals“. My morals are individual to circumstance and to my feeling and thinking.. I think both Ti and Fi give the ability for constantly thinking “What do I think is right action given these particular circumstances? ” Where Fe and Te think more along the lines of “What do other people feel? What does THE (but it could be anything they give authority to like the Bible, for instance) law say?” Fi is very much about navigating complexities of these circumstances.

For instance, we can see the complexities that blanket-statement morals do not always take into account. For instance, someone close to me (a relative) was having an affair. Her husband of one year was saying he was not attracted to her anymore but that he would kill himself if she left. She told him she wanted a divorce. He wanted to work it out, and wanted counseling but in the meantime he said for her to have an affair. She would have rather gotten a divorce at that point, although she loved him and takes marriage seriously, but she also takes her happiness and sexual nature seriously. He insisted they keep working on things while she got her needs met elsewhere. He had been very hurtful verbally about not being attracted to her, body shaming and such, and she did meet someone who fulfilled her needs and made her feel good about herself for about a year while her husband’s mental state improved. It was a mess, but she loved him and he wanted her to hang on and he was hanging on in this weird way. It did work out. He re-gained his attraction after about a year and they’ve been married for 14 years. She is a very honest and faithful person by nature, but also has a high need for sexual fulfillment (which supposedly was the root of the problem, he wasn’t used to a woman who was more sexual than he was— there’s still some mystery about that.)

My Te brother and my mom heard she was having an affair (from her gossipy mom) and were voicing their decision to never talk to her again as affairs are against their morals— voiced it in my presence. I said “It is MUCH more complicated than that. I’m not going to explain, but she has been honest with her husband the whole time.” They said “Oh, well we don’t really want to know the details. We just think affairs are wrong.” I said, “ Of course affairs are wrong and she would agree, but you don’t have all of the information and you can’t judge her using the bit of information that you have. This was not all her fault Or even choice.”

I’m pretty sure that we often make other people more aware of individual circumstances.

I’m sometimes amazed at how very circumstantial I feel even on things I am in general hard-core against. Stealing when someone is starving, affairs in a situation I wrote about, an abortion for a financially struggling very young girl with a 3 month old baby whose husband turned out to be very mentally ill. Circumstances are incredibly important— and people rarely understand all of other people’s circumstances. But I think circumstances are considered very important to Fi.

I think I’m very comfortable with saying “Stealing is wrong... but would be right in x + (insert Ne ideas here) circumstances and absolutely wrong in y+ circumstances. Affairs are wrong but less wrong in x+ circumstances. Abortion is wrong but smart or understandable in x+ circumstances. I feel very comfortable with that. I’m not sure how else to view it. Not taking circumstances into consideration is wrong in x+ infinity circumstances. Thinking of right and wrong is philosophy and I personally think philosophy is the realm of Ti and Fi.

I’ve had multiple conversations on this forum about a particular difference between Fe that looks for how others feel and takes all of those different opinions into account or Fi that cannot help but constantly think “what do I think is right?” High Fe hardly ever thinks that phrase, but it is a constant question for me. “What do I think is right?” in x circumstances? And those judgements often don’t have anything to do with what I want, which information I am also highly aware of.

nptype · Mar 19, 2020

Llyralen said:
I hear Ts sometimes hearing or being told that Fi doesn’t use reasoning or have reasons for things. We do, but we use a feeling-related reasoning (which is often called morals). For instance “i wouldn't steal because I can imagine what it would feel like to be stolen from”. That’s the ABCs of Fi.

Yeah, I do that, but I call it sympathy/compassion.

Llyralen said:
You know your own feelings and you imagine yourself into someone else’s shoes so you can feel what you would feel in that situation. And you do this starting at age 3 or less in my experience,

For me, 5 or 6, as far as I can tell.

Llyralen said:
I don’t mind the word “morals“. My morals are individual to circumstance and to my feeling and thinking.. I think both Ti and Fi give the ability for constantly thinking “What do I think is right action given these particular circumstances? ”

Yes, circumstances are important to me too.

Llyralen said:
For instance, we can see the complexities that blanket-statement morals do not always take into account.

Right.

I’m sometimes amazed at how very circumstantial I feel even on things I am in general hard-core against. Stealing when someone is starving, affairs in a situation I wrote about, an abortion for a financially struggling very young girl with a 3 month old baby whose husband turned out to be very mentally ill. Circumstances are incredibly important— and people rarely understand all of other people’s circumstances. But I think circumstances are considered very important to Fi.

Yes, and to Ti as well.

Llyralen said:
I think I’m very comfortable with saying “Stealing is wrong... but would be right in x + (insert Ne ideas here) circumstances and absolutely wrong in y+ circumstances. Affairs are wrong but less wrong in x+ circumstances. Abortion is wrong but smart or understandable in x+ circumstances. I feel very comfortable with that. I’m not sure how else to view it. Not taking circumstances into consideration is wrong in x+ infinity circumstances.

Yes, although you pretty much said it in other words above.

Llyralen said:
Thinking of right and wrong is philosophy and I personally think philosophy is the realm of Ti and Fi.

I wouldn't necessarily say that. I certainly don't think Fe/Te types cannot be into philosophy.

-Albert.

Neetee · Mar 18, 2020

Norms: (state, society, person)

nptype said:
I don't care whether it is unethical/immoral to steal. But it is against my ideals, and against my opinions about what is generally acceptable, not to say honourable or noble, behaviour. My ideals are a more personal thing than morals typically seem to be. They are based more on my personal feelings (eg. I would feel bad about being stolen from) and theories (eg. society would not function if too many persons were stealing), including sympathetic (compassionate) concerns (eg. I may think that another person would feel bad about being stolen from).

There are

the norms of your state
[*]the norms of the society that surrounds you
[*]the personal norms that govern your behaviour (not mere SJW babble)

Norms = Normative sentences with an a) obligation, b) permission or c) prohibition

You describe two kinds of personal norms, the first is based on your feelings (“My ideals), the second is based on theories (→ principles extracted from positive law; → legal philosophy; → practical philosophy, example: postulate of generalizability; etc.).

In each individual case you can decide which of the norms of the three above norm reservoirs you follow.

Northern Lights said:
My experience is that when you already talk like this (i.e., in abstract terms) about the issue, you indeed aren't much in the F camp. Kantian reasoning (your stealing example) is the domain of T.

Exactly. But I guess the examples were chosen specifically to illustrates this:

nptype said:
I have Fi, about as much as Ti

By the way, this is the typical self-presentation of male feelers when asked about their T/F preference.

but I just don't recognise this "moralising" in myself.

I find it interesting that you mention your potential negative feeling judgments, and that Jung writes about negativity when he writes about introverted feeling:

Carl Gustav Jung said:
3. Feeling

Introverted feeling is determined principally by the subjective factor. This means that the feeling-judgment differs quite as essentially from extraverted feeling as does the introversion of thinking from extraversion. It is unquestionably difficult to give an intellectual presentation of the introverted feeling process, or even an approximate description of it, although the peculiar character of this kind of feeling simply stands out as soon as one becomes aware of it at all. Since it is primarily controlled by subjective preconditions, and is only secondarily concerned with the object, this feeling appears much less upon the surface and is, as a rule, misunderstood. It is a feeling which apparently depreciates the object; hence it usually becomes noticeable in its negative manifestations. The existence of a positive feeling can be inferred only indirectly, as it were. Its aim is not so much to accommodate to the objective fact as to stand above it, since its whole unconscious effort is to give reality to the underlying images. It is, as it were, continually seeking an image which has no existence in reality, but of which it has had a sort of previous vision. From objects that can never fit in with its aim it seems to glide unheedingly away. It strives after an inner intensity, to which at the most, objects contribute only an accessory stimulus. The depths of this feeling can only be divined – they can never be clearly comprehended. It makes men silent and difficult of access; with the sensitiveness of the mimosa, it shrinks from the brutality of the object, in order to expand into the depths of the subject. It puts forward negative feeling-judgments or assumes an air of profound indifference, as a measure of self-defence.
…
Everything, therefore, that has been said of the introverted thinking refers equally to introverted feeling, only here everything is felt while there it was thought. But the fact that thoughts can generally be expressed more intelligibly than feelings demands a more than ordinary descriptive or artistic capacity before the real wealth of this feeling can be even approximately presented or communicated to the outer world. Whereas subjective thinking, on account of its unrelatedness, finds great difficulty in arousing an adequate understanding, the same, though in perhaps even higher degree, holds good for subjective feeling. In order to communicate with others it has to find an external form which is not only fitted to absorb the subjective feeling in a satisfying expression, but which must also convey it to one's fellowman in such a way that a parallel process takes place in him.
…
Continually emancipating itself from the relation to the object, this feeling creates a freedom, both of action and of conscience, that is only answerable to the subject, and that may even renounce all traditional values. But so much the more does unconscious thinking fall a victim to the power of objective facts.

It seems that for systemic reasons these feelers can’t say much about their personal norms even if they do their best. Which is why their personal-norm waving often appears as nothing but an image management effort.

Northern Lights said:
has me every now and then looking with envy at people who have an unerring moral compass they can follow. I'm never sure, and always wondering.

Interesting. I wouldn’t call it moral but personal compass, like personal computer, because moral is a term already used for the customs (→ mos) of the surrounding society. Do you have examples from everyday life that illustrate your decision-making dilemmas?

Northern Lights · Mar 19, 2020

Neetee said:
Interesting. I wouldn’t call it moral but personal compass, like personal computer, because moral is a term already used for the customs (→ mos) of the surrounding society. Do you have examples from everyday life that illustrate your decision-making dilemmas?

Which, even if you wanted to make the distinction, wouldn't be a bad fit, since I'm not tied to whatever society deems appropriate either, no?

Real life examples ... not dilemmas at such. I mean, we hardly end up in extraordinary circumstances in daily life. The point was exactly what I wrote: the context-dependency leaves you with no fix point on which to ground the entire construct. There is no true north. Every single action I could take is subject a (hypothetical) exception for which any global moral rule would not apply, leaving me de facto without any moral rules whatsoever. And this is a dangerous thing -- in essence, I distrust myself, knowing I could potentially justify anything, because reason can justify anything. A rigid morality, a clear view of right and wrong, cannot.

And this state being the way it is, all I can do is constantly question myself and use any number of logical frameworks that (hopefully) allow me to consider enough angles, impacts, and consequences that based on the beliefs and ideals I consciously picked, I'm making the right decision. But certainty doesn't lie that way.

IDontThinkSo · Mar 19, 2020

Morals is a set of habits which are consistent with one's urge of living. The more an organism is moral, the more it is optimized hence stereotypical. There are only many ways to fail.

The flaws in one's consistency are as many flaws in one's epistemology that prevent from building an understanding of one's flaws. The less one is moral, the more dumb reasons one can find to believe otherwise : "morals don't exist" "everyone has its own", and some god shit people say. Reality check: the quicker you age the harder you fail.

nptype · Mar 24, 2020

IDontThinkSo said:
Morals is a set of habits which are consistent with one's urge of living.

Habits that are consistent with one's lust for living?

IDontThinkSo said:
The more an organism is moral, the more it is optimized hence stereotypical. There are only many ways to fail.

Depends on what you mean by optimised. Being a stereotype is in not in any way optimal as I see it. If you're going to fail, you should at least try to fail creatively.

IDontThinkSo said:
The flaws in one's consistency are as many flaws in one's epistemology that prevent from building an understanding of one's flaws. The less one is moral, the more dumb reasons one can find to believe otherwise : "morals don't exist" "everyone has its own", and some god shit people say.

I believe morals are in the eye of the beholder. From all perspectives.

IDontThinkSo said:
Reality check: the quicker you age the harder you fail.

If you think dying is necessarily a failure. I don't, I think it is more like starting something new.

-Albert.

BigApplePi · Mar 21, 2020

nptype said:
Hi all,

This was originally part of another thread, but no-one replied there, and I also think this topic deserves its own thread.
----

I have Fi, about as much as Ti, but the thing is, that many ENFPs speak a lot about morals and values and about doing what is "right". Now, we all like to do what's right from one or more points of view or considerations, but I just don't recognise this "moralising" in myself. I do not think in terms of morals. In fact I feel morals and ethics just boils down to opinion -- we all have them and they seem "right" from our own perspective.

Maybe I think in terms of ideals instead of morals, if that makes sense? I don't care whether it is unethical/immoral to steal. But it is against my ideals, and against my opinions about what is generally acceptable, not to say honourable or noble, behaviour. My ideals are a more personal thing than morals typically seem to be. They are based more on my personal feelings (eg. I would feel bad about being stolen from) and theories (eg. society would not function if too many persons were stealing), including sympathetic (compassionate) concerns (eg. I may think that another person would feel bad about being stolen from).

Or maybe this is just a matter of terminology? Another term I can think of is "code of honour".

Regards,
Albert.

Hmm. Lots of questions. Not sure how ethical it is, but I like to define my own terms just taking hints from others. I'd say morality for me is the policy I practice the way I do things. I try to do the right thing but that is not a policy. I'm okay with being expedient because that's the way it is. Ethics is more for group behavior. Ethics is the same as for the individual except is for a group.

An ideal is a target that optimizes morality or ethics. Or it's just the perfect form of something as when one tries to draw a circle by hand but falls short of perfection.

What else? Fi = one's own feelings about something? How deliberate is that supposed to be? When it's not very deliberate, it's just there. There is no morality if I'm not promoting it.

Ti? That's just internal thinking. I may like to think, but that could be about any ol' thing. There is no morality. I suppose it could be said it's a good idea to put a little thought into something before acting. If a group insists on that, it's an ethical policy.

ai.tran.75 · Mar 22, 2020

nptype said:
Hi all,

I have Fi, about as much as Ti, but the thing is, that many ENFPs speak a lot about morals and values and about doing what is "right". Now, we all like to do what's right from one or more points of view or considerations, but I just don't recognise this "moralising" in myself. I do not think in terms of morals. In fact I feel morals and ethics just boils down to opinion -- we all have them and they seem "right" from our own perspective.

Maybe I think in terms of ideals instead of morals, if that makes sense? I don't care whether it is unethical/immoral to steal. But it is against my ideals, and against my opinions about what is generally acceptable, not to say honourable or noble, behaviour. My ideals are a more personal thing than morals typically seem to be. They are based more on my personal feelings (eg. I would feel bad about being stolen from) and theories (eg. society would not function if too many persons were stealing), including sympathetic (compassionate) concerns (eg. I may think that another person would feel bad about being stolen from).

Or maybe this is just a matter of terminology? Another term I can think of is "code of honour".

Regards,
Albert.

From how I see it- ethics is something that is group upon - moral controls a person decision In doing something- values is what we hold dear to us . Unsure if it’s fi- correlated . It’s not much of doing what is right for me but I do know that my views on ethics comes from within more so than social influences- I believe that Fi and Ti derived from within - just one is more likely not to go against their belief on morals /values vs one would follow what’s most logical .

What makes you think you use Fi out of curiosity. @Llyralen brought out a good point - Fi is putting self in one person place and see imagine how you /that person would react to a certain situation. For example- I don’t tell people what to do when they share feelings /thoughts with me unless they ask me for my opinion ~ bc I find it invasive when others advice me what to do when I’m opening up to them and also with the belief of only you can solve your own dilemma. I think that’s where my internal value stems from and I know that it’s more common for fi to talk of values ( though I don’t think it’s type related- we’re human beings )

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

nptype · Mar 24, 2020

ai.tran.75 said:
What makes you think you use Fi out of curiosity.

The tests and other people suggest that I do, and I agree. The question is only which of Ti and Fi I use most.

-Albert.

NIHM · Mar 25, 2020

Are we using ethics interchangeably or the actual meaning of what both morality and ethics mean? They are as I've been zinged in the past, two distinct words. I just need to know which version we're going with before I throw my two cents in. It feels like ethics is being interchangeable with morality in this scenario.

nptype · Mar 25, 2020

See the posts by MonarK for one, apparently extensively thought out, version of terminology.

In practice, I see "ethical" and "moral" used interchangeably a lot.

-Albert.

solarnis · Mar 25, 2020

All of us have ethics because most of us belong within a society. Some of us have our own internal moral compass that might go against the grain of laws present. This doesn't mean we don't know the basics of right from wrong. I have found that each ENFP has a unique set of strong morals, my wife refers to them as her hit-cards. These hit-cards are unique to each ENFP because of their Fi, which values authenticity and individuality.

Northern Lights · Mar 29, 2020

The point is not the fact that any reasonable person behaves as a reasonable person (i.e., is considerate in their actions, the consequence of acting, more or less, morally), though. The fact that it's a tautology already shows there's not much to see there. The relevant differences are the edge cases -- when some people know right from wrong, but others don't, not anymore. Also the degree of conviction. And the source of it.

Someone asked about examples. I said there aren't much IRL; I guess Corona is one, even if still abstract: I am not, but were I in a position of responsibility, I wouldn't know what the right thing to do is. How do you divide a limited resource between a potentially unlimited group of people? How do you factor other aspects into it -- the economic cost of shutdowns, say; ultimately, the existence of the state, which can't endure without economy indefinitely? A life can't be assigned a value, but what if by refusing to do so, you already did, just in a different way?

Some people have instinctive, very clear opinions. I posit that T(P) is not often that; for good and ill, there's all those complex tiny individual pieces that all are considered, leading to muddled, confusing answer full of qualifiers, and because of the nature of its base -- reasoning -- also eternally doubtful, unsure whether a critical piece perhaps was overlooked or weighed wrongly, leading to catastrophe.

One who decides based on instinctive knowledge of right and wrong has the solace of having done the right thing, even if the results are terrible. One who tries to decide by forecasting the outcome runs the risk of facing nothing but destruction when the best I could do turns out to be just not good enough, and even when it works out, facing the doubt of a hypothetical better as the enemy of the achieved good.

nptype · Mar 30, 2020

Northern Lights said:
A life can't be assigned a value, ...

Why not?

Back when there was slavery, they put a price on a person in terms of money. So it is clearly possible.

I don't value people in terms of money, but I do value them in terms of how much I like (or even love) them. Thus different people have different value to me.

There's no one-size-fits-all for me, it all depends on the circumstances.

-Albert.

Llyralen · Mar 29, 2020

@Northern Lights. My doctor co-workers tell me they are doing more deliberating about each patient than they ever have before. It’s not easy work. Also if it’s not COVID then you would use different drugs. Our tests are taking 2-3 days to return. It’s all so not easy now. Big things as you talked about and also just stupid little things. There is deliberation just to do normal stupid things. Today I touched a package at the store that I decided I didn’t want to buy and felt guilty for touching it. Just everything. What you talked about with short and long term and freaking everything. By the way, see my predictions thread in the NF forum, if you don’t mind and have the time. I wouldn’t mind if you copied and pasted what you just wrote to there. It’s exactly the kind of post I was hoping everyone would discuss in that thread.

strawberryLola · May 28, 2020

Morals and ethics to me stems from:
1) Congruence- Can I live with myself based on the decisions I did or did not do within reason?
2) Limitations- I understand certain conditions exist- certain things in life are really just out of our hands. I can’t save the world (nor do I care for dogma).
3) Best Case Scenario- Am I choosing to apply the best case scenario in my mind meanwhile, preparing for the worst case scenario.
4) Long-Term Potentiality- How will my choices play out both short, and more importantly, long-term.
5) Clarity- Am I seeing the decisions I make from a perspective of clarity? Or is it clouded by others’ viewpoints?

Ne helps me to see various options. Fi allows me to solidify those choices by knowing I stood by something that makes life worth living.

I’d rather die than to lie to myself. And I’m NOT afraid to die. Kill me if you want to, but I sure as hell will never betray my own personal values and code of conduct.

And #1: Face Our Problems Head On!!
There’s no point in running away from our problems.

And most of all, SHIELD YOUR ENERGY: Be discerning and at the same time go with the flow- don’t allow external influences to jeopardize your sense of sounding (dignity, personhood, integrity).

Fi allows us to maintain a sense of home. Ne guards us from get-go!

providence · May 29, 2020

Do you think the initial post is more about semantics?

Morality seems to be carried along with religious and cultural "rules". Morality boiled down is really determining right from wrong.

Ideals to me, are an idea of how things "should be", and span over a lot of topics. Where as morality is a universal sense of right and wrong. For example, murder is wrong regardless if I think it should be or not.

sorely misunderstood, the moral code translated thru the bible is intended to be a tutor to teach freedom from the "degenerate" part of your nature, not a suppressive list of rules to follow. most of the "ten commandments" regardless what you believe are pretty self evident, don't kill cheat lie or steal. it's purpose and meaning is boiled down to love. so if you did everything for yourself and others motivated by love, you wouldn't need rules.

absent of any religious belief, however, the idea of a supreme moral code is pretty essential, would you agree? if someone wanted to kill their neighbor and have their way with their wife, that universally wrong regardless of anyone opinion, ideal, or otherwise. basic stuff, right?

nptype · May 29, 2020

providence said:
Do you think the initial post is more about semantics?

Citing my initial post: "Or maybe this is just a matter of terminology?".

providence said:
Ideals to me, are an idea of how things "should be", and span over a lot of topics. Where as morality is a universal sense of right and wrong. For example, murder is wrong regardless if I think it should be or not.

There is nothing "universal" or "absolute" about morals. It makes no sense to speak of "right" or "wrong" unless there is a perspective from which to make such an evaluation -- ie. someone's point of view or opinion. If no-one is there to think/feel that murder is "wrong", then it is meaningless to say it is. Murder is illegal because the members of society/ies have agreed on such a rule.

I think in terms of "good" or "bad". Whether eg. murder is good or bad depends on the details of the situation. If someone I dislike were to be murdered, I would consider it "good".

-Albert.

Morals/ethics vs. ideals

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