The question of morality dates back to ancient greece, and has been mentioned throughout history as a serious or set of rules that humankind ought to observe.

Kant describes morality as a matter of imperative and suggests that moral actions are acts that we would will that they would become a universal law. But what about instinct and survival, we surely do not consider it moraly wrong when one goes to extremes in desperate situations. Kant goes further and suggest that we are only responsible for our own moral actions, which implies that there is a distinct moral difference between action and inaction.
John Stuart Mills Utalitarianism suggests our moral values sometimes conflict and that the overriding to commitment is to first do less harm to others. Mills takes it further and suggest that we can an do take some moral accountability for our actions as much as our inactions.
There are many concepts of what morality is from religious and spiritual backgrounds as well as philosophical and ideological backgrounds.

It seems to me that all moral language essentially boils down to two underlying principals which mean essentially the same thing
1) Do NOT unto others as you would have them NOT do unto you
2) Do no harm (either physical, social or emotional), Do not allow others to do harm (where possible)

here i will present a scenario and leave it up to you to decide on the moral implications and hopefully we will observe that different cultures observe different moral codes and values based on a number of social componants.
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John recieves a knock at the front door of his house...
He answers the door too a man who is standing with a knife in one hand and a photo in the other...
He shows John the photo and says "I'm looking for this person, do you know where he/she is"...
Immediately he recognises the man at the front door as a murderer he had seen on TV, and the photo is of John's nextdoor neighbour...

Do you tell the murderer the truth and let your neighbour die, or do you lie, buying John enough time to call the police to come and arrest the murderer?
----
Of these two answers there is a moral question to ask here:
Suppose John tells the truth, and his neighbour is murdered --- According to Kant, John is not morally accountable is any way, only that he has a responsibiliy to uphold his own moral code and no-one elses.
--- According to Mills, John is as morally accountable as the murderer, because there is no moral difference between the action and Johns inaction which failed to try and prevent harm.

Would you think Johns inaction is as bad as the murderers actions?
What are you views on morallity?
Do we as human have a duty to act morally, or not? If so, do we have the right to enforce moral behaviour at all? Or only if it undermines the fundamental moral principles found in all moral codes?

I suppose one thing to remember is do not confuse cultural values with morality values? For instance you may say it is morally right not to steel, imagine if everybody did it (this would constitue morality is you were to envolk this reaction without contradiction), One might say that it is morally right to celebrate our national day, imagine if everyone did it (You can see that this response fails to encapsulate any kind of imperative, primarily because it does not harm if one does not do it.)

Actually, if John tells the murderer where the neighbor lives then this is an action, so Kant would most likely also see this as immoral. Since John knows that he is dealing with a murderer, his action of telling the murderer where the neighbor lives makes him an accessory to the crime.

Written by jupitreas on 25.07.2011 at 02:19

Actually, if John tells the murderer where the neighbor lives then this is an action, so Kant would most likely also see this as immoral. Since John knows that he is dealing with a murderer, his action of telling the murderer where the neighbor lives makes him an accessory to the crime.

Kant would say something along the lines of lying is morally wrong, and since you only have control of your own intentions and you also only have certainly of them, John ought to guard his own moral integrity, because a) He can't be certain of the murderers intentions, b) Lying to a sociopath is a very difficult thing to do, and they might see through your lie and target you instead.

How can John be an accessory to a murder he is not certain will happen. Legally you would not be able to prove any guilt or certainty. Besides this is getting away from the idea of what is morally right, not necessarily legally. The two can be quite different.

Written by ToMegaTherion on 25.07.2011 at 09:41

Written by jupitreas on 25.07.2011 at 02:19

Actually, if John tells the murderer where the neighbor lives then this is an action, so Kant would most likely also see this as immoral. Since John knows that he is dealing with a murderer, his action of telling the murderer where the neighbor lives makes him an accessory to the crime.

Kant would say something along the lines of lying is morally wrong, and since you only have control of your own intentions and you also only have certainly of them, John ought to guard his own moral integrity, because a) He can't be certain of the murderers intentions, b) Lying to a sociopath is a very difficult thing to do, and they might see through your lie and target you instead.

How can John be an accessory to a murder he is not certain will happen. Legally you would not be able to prove any guilt or certainty. Besides this is getting away from the idea of what is morally right, not necessarily legally. The two can be quite different.

Indeed, the two can be quite different and I do regret using this phrase now, in hindsight. All I meant to say is that John would have been partially guilty of his neighbor's death. You see, in the original post, you made it clear that:
1. John recognizes the murderer from TV
2. John's choices are to "tell the murderer the truth and let your neighbour die, or do you lie, buying John enough time to call the police to come and arrest the murderer?".

Given this information, it becomes clear that John's duty is actually to apprehend the criminal and not to be honest (or dishonest or anything). Let us do a categorical imperative test:
Maxim: If I encounter a known criminal, I must always try to capture/apprehend him.
Generalized: Everyone should immediately try to capture known criminals. (PASS)
Universal law: Certainly, the world would be better if everyone tried capturing known criminals. (PASS)
Therefore, John's duty is to apprehend the criminal and if he does it through being dishonest or some other means is not relevant. Nevertheless, if he does simply tell the murderer the truth, he will have ignored his duty to capture the criminal and is thus morally wrong.

This is how I imagine Kant would approach this hypothetical situation. I don't think he would focus too much on lying, since the maxim of not lying regardless of circumstances could possibly be against the practical imperative. It has been a while since I read Kant's work on ethics though so I could be wrong about this.

Either way, I think in this case, both Kant and Mills would consider telling the murderer the truth to be a morally wrong action.

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In the original post, you also asked the following 3 questions, I'll now try answering them based on what I personally think and not on what Kant or Mills might think.

Would you think Johns inaction is as bad as the murderers actions?
Not as bad since the murderer actively wants to kill the neighbor, whereas John is an accidental 'accessory' to this action. Nevertheless, his inaction does make it easier for the murderer to kill the neighbor, so according to me, he is definitely doing something morally wrong.

What are you views on morality?
My own views on morality are a mixture of moral relativism and virtue ethics, with the assumption that chaos is the only constant. I've described this at length in this thread. In essence, I identify curiosity as the primary human virtue that needs to be pursued.

Do we as human have a duty to act morally, or not? If so, do we have the right to enforce moral behaviour at all? Or only if it undermines the fundamental moral principles found in all moral codes?
I don't really think there is any underlying duty to anything we do. All moral issues should be analyzed on an individual basis.

Written by jupitreas on 25.07.2011 at 18:03

Written by ToMegaTherion on 25.07.2011 at 09:41

Written by jupitreas on 25.07.2011 at 02:19

Actually, if John tells the murderer where the neighbor lives then this is an action, so Kant would most likely also see this as immoral. Since John knows that he is dealing with a murderer, his action of telling the murderer where the neighbor lives makes him an accessory to the crime.

This is how I imagine Kant would approach this hypothetical situation. I don't think he would focus too much on lying, since the maxim of not lying regardless of circumstances could possibly be against the practical imperative. It has been a while since I read Kant's work on ethics though so I could be wrong about this.

A good response and you may also be correct I'm not Kant so I can't speek exactly for him. But I would think that the practical imperative might not be applicable here. I would argue because the act of apprehending Criminals is mearly disirable, not by any need an imperative. As Kant might suggest. Notifiying the authorities as well might be considered a disirable response. Disirable because it may only be interested parties which are conserned with the murderers apprehention. Suppose said murderer is a revolutionary against a brutal authoritarian regieme, presents a case where the murderers apprehention may not be disirable at all. TV does not always speak the truth. So i suppose in some sense your CI test does not satisfy a moral imperative because it is not in all cases right to either stop or apprehend said murderer. Maybe it is, but in the above scenario all John knows is that he recognises the "murderer" from TV.

Written by ToMegaTherion on 26.07.2011 at 04:25

A good response and you may also be correct I'm not Kant so I can't speek exactly for him. But I would think that the practical imperative might not be applicable here. I would argue because the act of apprehending Criminals is mearly disirable, not by any need an imperative. As Kant might suggest. Notifiying the authorities as well might be considered a disirable response. Disirable because it may only be interested parties which are conserned with the murderers apprehention. Suppose said murderer is a revolutionary against a brutal authoritarian regieme, presents a case where the murderers apprehention may not be disirable at all. TV does not always speak the truth. So i suppose in some sense your CI test does not satisfy a moral imperative because it is not in all cases right to either stop or apprehend said murderer. Maybe it is, but in the above scenario all John knows is that he recognises the "murderer" from TV.

Good point, it is very difficult to decide what the categorical imperative that applies to any given situation at a given time might be. I think this actually reveals the problem with Kant's categorical imperative, in general. While we have plenty of time to think about this, we are still struggling and arguing on what the right thing to do would be. John would only have a split second to make this decision.

Written by jupitreas on 26.07.2011 at 13:18

Written by ToMegaTherion on 26.07.2011 at 04:25

A good response and you may also be correct I'm not Kant so I can't speek exactly for him. But I would think that the practical imperative might not be applicable here. I would argue because the act of apprehending Criminals is mearly disirable, not by any need an imperative. As Kant might suggest. Notifiying the authorities as well might be considered a disirable response. Disirable because it may only be interested parties which are conserned with the murderers apprehention. Suppose said murderer is a revolutionary against a brutal authoritarian regieme, presents a case where the murderers apprehention may not be disirable at all. TV does not always speak the truth. So i suppose in some sense your CI test does not satisfy a moral imperative because it is not in all cases right to either stop or apprehend said murderer. Maybe it is, but in the above scenario all John knows is that he recognises the "murderer" from TV.

Good point, it is very difficult to decide what the categorical imperative that applies to any given situation at a given time might be. I think this actually reveals the problem with Kant's categorical imperative, in general. While we have plenty of time to think about this, we are still struggling and arguing on what the right thing to do would be. John would only have a split second to make this decision.

I agree on both counts. And frankly thats why I included Mills in this discussion, because he essentially follows Kant, but includes the Harm principle to deal with conflicting moral problems. On that split second decision, you are quite correct he is in a very difficult situation where it is unlikely that the morality of the situation would enter his mind, i think survival instinct would be the first thing, since John knows the stranger is "dangerous". I think that the decision made is one partly based on the moral fibre John has been brought up with through experience and education, in large part based on the old fashioned idea of "Do NOT unto others, as you would have them NOT do unto you". But it depends on his own composure as to the decision being based on "Fight or Flight" instinct, or the morality of the situation.