Are you allowed to enforce your subjective morality upon others?

[Sean989]

its such a broad topic. Really no enforced law is glitch free. There will always be exceptions. There will always be times when a rule or law doesn't serve the people for the greater good and should be ignored or done away with.

I can offer that all laws need to be questioned and challenged. Also new laws need to be established and others brought down as with the changes in societies. lastly, the bringing down of old laws and rising up if new ones is to be established by a majority vote of all the people in the community who are of age, not established by people of the past or by people with gold or with power.
Morality needs to be renovated often and decided upon collectively. All the people are owed an equal vote

Affluence8

I couldn't agree more.

But that is someone else subjecting a person to their subjective morality also. A cop kicking the S**T out of a criminal. Morality hasn't always been they same. Single mother were frowned upon (and not for the reasons some are today). Also, Crucifixion isn't done today not only because it's too much like hard work, it would be classed inhumane treatment.

[lsbskins1]

So out of all the people mentioned here...you, a judge, a jury, the police/qualified investigatory source, defense and prosecution lawyers. Your morality on forcing him into 'sanctions' will have the biggest contribution to the offenders fate, life and experience of custody/incarceration?

No. Jeebus! I was going on the assumption that the question was based on the idea that attempting to codify morality at any level was a mistake. That code, the legal framework on which enforcement is based, would not come from me alone, nor in greatest measure. It would come from the, I hope, rational assessment of what constitutes actionable harm by the whole of society.

I also was going on the assumption that it would be obvious that I did not mean that I, personally, would get to dictate to all others.

I mean, come on, I am far from the only human who thinks the sexual exploitation of a child is a moral wrong that society has a right to attempt to halt...this isn't about me, it is about the larger question.

The trick here is to distinguish what simply offends someone's moral sense and what actually causes harm to others. I would not legislate to the lowest common denominator. I would not force everyone to be a vegan because some think it is morally wrong to eat meat, but that does not mean that all moral judgments are equally subjective. The world is not black and white, it is filled with shades of gray. One does not have to be all in or all out on this question.

[Peter]

Are you allowed to enforce your subjective morality upon others?

IMO, we don't just have the right we have the obligation to try and force our subjective moralities on others. This is how we build a more objective societal moral code. I can't imagine a world with 7 billion different subjective moral codes because everyone kept their moral code to themselves. How would you ever know how to interact with another person?

[lukas8u]

Has anyone stopped to consider the fact that the question of whether enforcing a subjective moral code is ethical.... is based on your subjective moral code?

So, I'll approach this subject from a different angle- it's not reasonable/possible to enforce your own moral code on other people in the logistic sense.

The only thing saving us from each other is our own incompetence.

[Thanatos]

Has anyone stopped to consider the fact that the question of whether enforcing a subjective moral code is ethical.... is based on your subjective moral code?

So, I'll approach this subject from a different angle- it's not reasonable/possible to enforce your own moral code on other people in the logistic sense.

The only thing saving us from each other is our own incompetence.

Laziness is also saving us. It's easier to keep your head down and follow the herd than it is to do something unexpectedly bad or good.

[Darklordabc]

The trick here is to distinguish what simply offends someone's moral sense and what actually causes harm to others. I would not legislate to the lowest common denominator. I would not force everyone to be a vegan because some think it is morally wrong to eat meat, but that does not mean that all moral judgments are equally subjective.

Are you going to decide which morals are more subjective then others?
If you say the majority decides, then all that is a tyranny of a group of people enforcing their subjective beliefs on others, just because their larger in number means their morals are any more truer.
If you say logic decides, then your already making a subjective statement by valuing logic over other arbitrary values. What do you say to the religious folk that value faith before logic?

IMO, we don't just have the right we have the obligation to try and force our subjective moralities on others. This is how we build a more objective societal moral code. I can't imagine a world with 7 billion different subjective moral codes because everyone kept their moral code to themselves. How would you ever know how to interact with another person?

Winner

[lsbskins1]

Are you going to decide which morals are more subjective then others?
If you say the majority decides, then all that is a tyranny of a group of people enforcing their subjective beliefs on others, just because their larger in number means their morals are any more truer.
If you say logic decides, then your already making a subjective statement by valuing logic over other arbitrary values. What do you say to the religious folk that value faith before logic?

I say that it is all well and good to be a gadfly, poking holes and pointing out imperfections, but sooner or later one has to decide on something. No system is perfect. The system that combines logic, the recognition of harm to some individual or set of indivduals as being a key element in granting a government the right to deny freedom of action and a reliance on the leveling influence of the majority in a democratic system is going to produce better outcomes that just about any other system you can come up with. The tyranny of the majority is mitigated by both logic and the need for a demonstatable harm to be present. The majority might prefer vanilla ice cream, but has no basis to ban chocolate absent an ability to demonstrate that chocolate causes harm. No harm, no foul. My system is not perfect, but it sure as shit isn't arbitrary and it does not ignore the possiblility of irrational behavior from the masses. It rests completely on no single leg.

To the religious folk I say, you are free to value, in your own life, a more restrictive code, but if you can not show real harm coming from what you would ban, you don't get to ban it.

[BlackSheep]

IMO, we don't just have the right we have the obligation to try and force our subjective moralities on others. This is how we build a more objective societal moral code. I can't imagine a world with 7 billion different subjective moral codes because everyone kept their moral code to themselves. How would you ever know how to interact with another person?

Actually no. They way to come up with a consensus is not to try to force it on others. That creates fear, antagonism and hatred. They way to do this is called communication. We can get together and discuss. That is a much better way to not have people keep things to themselves. In our current world many people are afraid to speak of their views on morality because they will be judged as immoral.

[SamhainsCall]

Simple.

Any way or form of "imposing" your own morality that treads over basic human rights such as the right to freedom or choice or the right to life is morraly deficit.

Persuasion is fine, force is not.

For example, with the first question you asked.

Why are we trying to save them?
Who is trying to kill them?
Why?
Who is going to be killed?
Is the human life worth trading for the human freedom?

Hypothetical and loophole questions(like the depending on how sure question) don't work for debate. There are too many variables and too many loopholes. How does one measure their subjective certainty of their own beliefs, especially in the case of religion where belief is almost always cast in iron, or thrown away.

[Darklordabc]

The system that combines logic, the recognition of harm to some individual or set of indivduals as being a key element in granting a government the right to deny freedom of action and a reliance on the leveling influence of the majority in a democratic system is going to produce better outcomes that just about any other system you can come up with.

You can talk about efficiency all day but It wont get you away from the fact your enforcing an subjective morality. No matter how seemingly justified your views are, they will always come down to some precept you arbitrarily value (In your case, the harm principle). To be clear, when I say arbitrary, I mean its your personal choice e.g: you personally choose that avoiding harm is the most logical principle to work of. And its clearly the case people choose different starting points for their justifications, such as, "being personally successful" which might have nothing to do with avoiding harm.

So your only option left is to accept that your are in fact enforcing your merely subjective morality, even if that means you have something in common with every other tyrant in history.
Personally, I accept my morality is subjective. Do you?

[lsbskins1]

You can talk about efficiency all day but It wont get you away from the fact your enforcing an subjective morality. No matter how seemingly justified your views are, they will always come down to some precept you arbitrarily value (In your case, the harm principle). To be clear, when I say arbitrary, I mean its your personal choice e.g: you personally choose that avoiding harm is the most logical principle to work of. And its clearly the case people choose different starting points for their justifications, such as, "being personally successful" which might have nothing to do with avoiding harm.

So your only option left is to accept that your are in fact enforcing your merely subjective morality, even if that means you have something in common with every other tyrant in history.
Personally, I accept my morality is subjective. Do you?

It's like, as the saying goes, two fleas arguing over who owns the dog they live on. It is a useless point to argue. Its obvious that neither does, but if one did, it really would not alter the important, functional aspects of their lives. It does not matter if all of the world is subjective in terms of the "valued" starting points. Functionally speaking, we can determine which arbitrarily arrived at value system produces better outcomes. And please, be aware that I said better, not perfect. The question was not about "if" the opinions were subjective, the question concerned the issue of "should we impose" and as social creatures (that is the dog we live on) we don't have much choice but to do some level of imposing.

[Peter]

Actually no. They way to come up with a consensus is not to try to force it on others. That creates fear, antagonism and hatred. They way to do this is called communication. We can get together and discuss. That is a much better way to not have people keep things to themselves. In our current world many people are afraid to speak of their views on morality because they will be judged as immoral.

I understand what you mean Blackie but it's a fine line between communicating your personal ethics to someone and forcing your ethics on them. In the broadest sense I believe to communicate your ethics is an attempt to get(force) others to follow them too. If no one ever attempted to communicate their ethics to others it would be a strange world.