Does having immoral thoughts make someone immoral?

[Dominus Atheos]

A thoughtcrime being defined as a thought or motivation someone has that other people (in this case, you) deem immoral according to your personal moral code, but that that person does not act on or communicate.

If so, why?

[Dominus Atheos]

This continues this thread:

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=163829

"A morality experiment: Actions versus motivations"

A whole bunch of people answered contrary to the way I believe, that only the way you affect others or yourself matter.

So why do you believe that the private thoughts and motivations of a person, whose actions only affect the world around him in a good way, can take away from that?

Remember, for this thought experiment we are only using your own moral compass.

[Simon_Jester]

If my moral compass is defined by reference to philosophers and so on, does that mean I can't use it because I'm too philosophically literate?

Assuming the answer to that question is 'no...'

What it comes down to is that right and wrong are things you have to be conscious of.

If you aren't aware of basic principles of right and wrong, you're incapable of making meaningful ethical decisions- like a child, an animal, or a mentally ill person. This is a principle that most people agree on; you can't judge the actions of an insane person or a child as 'good' or 'evil' the same way you'd judge a sane adult's actions.

But the only difference between sane adult actions and insane/child actions is what's going on inside the mind. Therefore there has to be some component of our ethical judgment that depends on what's going on in your mind.

As I say in the other thread, it's not about 'thoughtcrime.' It's that why you did something matters when ti comes to deciding whether or not you deserve praise or blame for acting that way.

[LaCroix]

Everyone does have immoral thoughs on occasion. Not acting on those is what makes you a moral person.

[Hillary]

Everyone does have immoral thoughs on occasion. Not acting on those is what makes you a moral person.

^^This. What makes us civilised beings is that we have the ability to look past our hard-wired instincts and do what is 'right'. Acting on that ability is what makes us moral, in my opinion.

[Knife]

Which brings up how to weigh it? If I think one immoral act, then think of one moral act does it cancel out and make me neutral? If I think one immoral act, and do one moral act, does that put me in the positive?

[General Zod]

Morality is about your actions toward other people. Thinking isn't the same as acting unless you're a Christian.

[LaCroix]

Which brings up how to weigh it? If I think one immoral act, then think of one moral act does it cancel out and make me neutral? If I think one immoral act, and do one moral act, does that put me in the positive?

Your mind is free - you can fantasize about forcing yourself onto a woman or killing a whole orphanage all you want. It doesn't make you immoral, it just means you have a vivid imagination coming up with strange things. (It might be adviseable to find out why you are fantasizing such extreme things, though...)

The ability to realize that this is an immoral thing to do and not acting upon it makes you moral. Acting on it makes you immoral.

In turn, no amount of thinking moral things while still acting immoral will make you a moral person. Doing moral things makes you moral.

It's actually quite simple if it's reduced to one simple situation.

Unless you keep acting moral and immoral, both, in turns. Then it comes out to complicated systems of determining the moral value of each action , and adding up one vs the other, and we'll need a trained philospher to figure it out.

[phred]

Morality is about your actions toward other people. Thinking isn't the same as acting unless you're a Christian.

I think it goes by degrees. Momentarily thinking about shooting that asshole who cut you off in traffic is one thing. Dreaming about following him home and burning his house down for it is another.

[Borgholio]

My opinion in the other thread basically revolved around the idea that you can be an asshole if you do good deeds for a non-good ulterior motive. If deep down inside you are a racist scumbag but you work with orphaned black children to help improve their lives so you can earn good kharma...well you're still a racist scumbag. You really don't care about the children, you're just using them.

In this case, having immoral thoughts can go the same way. Everybody has thought about throwing a brick at the jerk who cuts you off on your daily commute. That's not immoral itself, because it's pretty much a passing thought. On the other hand if you seriously want to follow him home so you can burn his house down, then that would make you an immoral person despite the fact you don't do anything. It's quite possible that the only reason you don't do it is because of the criminal penalties. If the only barrier to you doing something immoral to someone else is fear of the law...then you're quite clearly an immoral person. You have go genuinely understand that your thoughts are wrong and you shouldn't act on them for you to be a moral person.

[Elheru Aran]

On the other hand, if your deeds are moral even though your thoughts aren't, and you don't give anybody cause to question your motives, the consequences of those deeds are still a net positive IMO. Say I see a bum panhandling on the street corner, for some inexplicable reason I want to go buy a canister of gasoline, pour it over him and light him on fire... but as I pass by I just give him a fiver and tell him to get some lunch and go on my way. Maybe I'm an asshole, but he got five bucks from me, hopefully it'll fill his stomach for a while, and the only one who knows what I was really thinking is myself and anybody who I choose to share it with.

In a sense, I +1'd the bum, while I -1'd myself. It balances out, and the only person who has to deal with this asshole is myself.

[Starglider]

The illusions of free will and unary self are fragile enough already without trying to blame people for the thematic content of their brain activity.

[LaCroix]

@borgholio
Legality isn't the only barrier.
Most people refrain from immoral things because they realize "they can't do that, it's just not right". Only few get to the stage that they'd do it if it weren't illegal. Even when immoral things are actually legal, a lot if people refrain because their moral compass tells them not to.

[Simon_Jester]

Morality is about your actions toward other people. Thinking isn't the same as acting unless you're a Christian.

Thoughts are not themselves immoral (although a person who persistently thinks bad thoughts is likely to start committing bad actions).

However, thoughts matter in that they alter the implications and intent of other actions.

My opinion in the other thread basically revolved around the idea that you can be an asshole if you do good deeds for a non-good ulterior motive. If deep down inside you are a racist scumbag but you work with orphaned black children to help improve their lives so you can earn good kharma...well you're still a racist scumbag. You really don't care about the children, you're just using them.

The flip side of this is an interesting idea by Kant.

Suppose there are two people: one who helps children because she likes children, and one who hates children, but helps them and is kind to them anyway because she thinks it's the right thing to do.

Kant would argue that the second person is more moral than the first- that it is actively MORE moral to act contrary to your natural impulses, because you're convinced it's the right thing to do. Anyone can follow their instincts; it requires a truly ethical person to ignore their instincts in favor of reasoning out what the correct course of action is.

[Zeropoint]

Parthunax and Kant would have a pleasant conversation.

[Adam Reynolds]

There was an interesting discussion relating to this idea on a podcast from Julia Galef with Professor Eric Schwitzgebel. It was the question of why moral philosphers don't behave any more morally than anyone else. So in a sense it is the inverse of the idea of this thread. How can someone who is devoted to the idea of studying morality support something that was morally wrong? Among the more disturbing ideas was someone like Martin Heidegger who actually supported the Nazis in 1930s Germany. Professor Schwitzgebel was involved in a study that showed that various moral philosophers are no more likely to make ethical decisions than anyone else.

An interesting idea she suggests is the drop in the bucket effect. The more someone discusses the ideas of moral philosophy, the more they can be overwhelmed by the ideas they are considering and eventually reach a point where they just forget it and rely on their natural inclination. It A big example is eating meat, the majority of moral philosophers both consider eating meat immoral and yet continue to consume it.

Peter Singer's thought experiement is another interesting example of this. Would you jump into a pool to save a drowning child even if it meant ruining your $1000 suit? An overwhelmingly majority would answer yes. Now would you donate that same $1000 to save a child in Africa? Most would answer no. This could even go to smaller things like the $3 you spend on coffee every day. How is it ethical to spend that money on your coffee when you could be donating it to benefit the parts of Africa below the poverty line($1.25 a day)? Now you could make a reasonable argument that aid programs economically make those parts of the world worse off because they discourage economic development but that is dodging the moral question.

XKCD summarizes the frequent response to this problem quite nicely:

I usually respond to someone else doing something good by figuring out a reason that they're not really as good as they seem. But I've been realizing lately that there's an easier way to handle these situations, and it involves zero internet arguments.

[Jub]

This entire concept is invalidated by the fact that free will is an illusion, our unconscious thought has already chosen our course and the conscious brain is left to justify our actions. We're no more free to choose our actions than a computer is, the only difference is that we're programmed by evolution and experience instead of being programmed by a development team. This will be true so long as our brains are ruled by physics.

[Knife]

Which brings up how to weigh it? If I think one immoral act, then think of one moral act does it cancel out and make me neutral? If I think one immoral act, and do one moral act, does that put me in the positive?

Your mind is free - you can fantasize about forcing yourself onto a woman or killing a whole orphanage all you want. It doesn't make you immoral, it just means you have a vivid imagination coming up with strange things. (It might be adviseable to find out why you are fantasizing such extreme things, though...)

The ability to realize that this is an immoral thing to do and not acting upon it makes you moral. Acting on it makes you immoral.

In turn, no amount of thinking moral things while still acting immoral will make you a moral person. Doing moral things makes you moral.

It's actually quite simple if it's reduced to one simple situation.

Unless you keep acting moral and immoral, both, in turns. Then it comes out to complicated systems of determining the moral value of each action , and adding up one vs the other, and we'll need a trained philospher to figure it out.

Oh, I agree with that notion, but plenty of people (up in the other thread) seem to think otherwise, so I was trying to get some discussion on it.

[Zwinmar]

This entire concept is invalidated by the fact that free will is an illusion, our unconscious thought has already chosen our course and the conscious brain is left to justify our actions. We're no more free to choose our actions than a computer is, the only difference is that we're programmed by evolution and experience instead of being programmed by a development team. This will be true so long as our brains are ruled by physics.

Sure, right, yeah, that is what happens...

Now I can hypothesize with the best that life is merely an illusion taking place in our brains, perhaps collectively. However, to say we have no choice in any matter, that all is effectively predetermined?

First, I have heard something similar before...oh yeah, some christians. Second, by making that claim you are effectively giving yourself a ready made excuse for any action you wish to partake in as it is all ready predetermined and as such you are free of responsibility for them.

What about those people whose impetus is to do one thing but do another? Are they fighting their own programming or is it something else?

[Jub]

Sure, right, yeah, that is what happens...

Now I can hypothesize with the best that life is merely an illusion taking place in our brains, perhaps collectively. However, to say we have no choice in any matter, that all is effectively predetermined?

First, I have heard something similar before...oh yeah, some christians.

Christians don't have physics and biology on their side.

Let me ask you what mechanism your brain works on? The answer is pretty easy, in the abstract, it works via a series of electrochemical processes that can and are altered by things like drugs and hormones. When looked at as a chemical reaction it becomes clear there is no choice in the matter. You can't alter the way a match burns by thinking at it any more than you can change the chemical processes in your brain by thinking about them. Your brain is literally thinking about changing itself due to a chemical process that made you think about changing it in the first place.

Second, by making that claim you are effectively giving yourself a ready made excuse for any action you wish to partake in as it is all ready predetermined and as such you are free of responsibility for them.

It is predetermined and nobody does have a choice. Equally so those that punish people for their actions don't have a choice either and thus nothing changes.

What about those people whose impetus is to do one thing but do another? Are they fighting their own programming or is it something else?

It's either something akin to a computer glitch or far more likely, them trying to justify consciously an action that they took due to an unconscious mental process.

[Simon_Jester]

This entire concept is invalidated by the fact that free will is an illusion, our unconscious thought has already chosen our course and the conscious brain is left to justify our actions. We're no more free to choose our actions than a computer is, the only difference is that we're programmed by evolution and experience instead of being programmed by a development team. This will be true so long as our brains are ruled by physics.

How elegant your oversimplifications are.

Among other things, you're committing a gross failure to think through the implications of identifying "I" as a chemical/computational process. Basically, you're rejecting and accepting mind/body dualism at the same time, so no wonder that leads to a ridiculous result like "free will does not exist."

[Jub]

How elegant your oversimplifications are.

Among other things, you're committing a gross failure to think through the implications of identifying "I" as a chemical/computational process. Basically, you're rejecting and accepting mind/body dualism at the same time, so no wonder that leads to a ridiculous result like "free will does not exist."

How are we anything other than the sum of our parts? The brain is nothing but a bag of chemicals interacting along a series of pathways that are formed using simple physical rules. Chemicals don't have a choice in how they react and any given reaction can only happen in one way given their starting states. It's a given that your mind can be manipulated even from an outside source with drugs, chemicals, and implanted electrodes. Given these facts, where does free will come from?

I'm going to state that last question again because unless there is an answer this debate is over. Where in the transition from inert material to living beings is free will imparted? At what level of mental complexity does a creature gain free will? Does a virus have free will? How about bacteria, they choose where to move to? Maybe the line starts at a cockroach? Could free will start with something as advanced as a skink? Do we need to get up to the level of a mouse to have free will? How about a dog? Do we have to go all the way to a dolphin or a chimpanzee to ascribe a creature with free will?

How is free will defined in clear scientific terms? Can free will be taken away? If somebody has a brain injury that affects their behavior, catches a virus, or ingests lead do they still have free will in spite of their changed behavior? If I drug you with something like cocaine or LSD do you still have free will?

Unless somebody can draw a line, even if it's fuzzy and incomplete, and show where unconscious act becomes free will I'm not buying that we have it at all.

[Hillary]

This entire concept is invalidated by the fact that free will is an illusion, our unconscious thought has already chosen our course and the conscious brain is left to justify our actions. We're no more free to choose our actions than a computer is, the only difference is that we're programmed by evolution and experience instead of being programmed by a development team. This will be true so long as our brains are ruled by physics.

This is only true if you treat every human as a closed system - they aren't; they are influenced by the world around them. Take two people and bring them up in very different environments and they will think and behave very differently. It may all be a matter of physics, but thought processes are far more complicated than you make out.

[Borgholio]

but as I pass by I just give him a fiver and tell him to get some lunch and go on my way.

Right but what made you change your mind so drastically? It's not like you simply decided that burning him was too much work and you moved on...you went the extra step and gave him money. That more likely means you didn't really want to burn him in the first place.

Legality isn't the only barrier.

Very true, but it's a simple dividing line that's easy to work with. If someone was annoying you, would you murder them if you knew you wouldn't be prosecuted for it? Or would you torture a small animal if you knew there wouldn't be any consequences at all for it? The answers to those questions can speak towards how moral a person really is.

Kant would argue that the second person is more moral than the first- that it is actively MORE moral to act contrary to your natural impulses, because you're convinced it's the right thing to do.

I would actually agree with that completely. If you want to do something bad, but you know it's wrong and work hard to avoid doing it...that demonstrates greater effort to do the right thing than someone for whom it comes naturally.

[Starglider]

It was the question of why moral philosphers don't behave any more morally than anyone else.

That should be blatantly obvious. We might as well ask why criminologists aren't all criminals or why military historians don't all enlist and try to get posted to warzones. Obviously you can study behaviour and belief systems without practicing them, this is the fundamental basis of anthropology.

How is it ethical to spend that money on your coffee when you could be donating it to benefit the parts of Africa below the poverty line? Now you could make a reasonable argument that aid programs economically make those parts of the world worse off because they discourage economic development but that is dodging the moral question.

There is a non-issue. It's a quite reasonable distinction between a direct action that is very likely to accomplish an immediate tangible goal, vs giving money to an anonymous distant organisations on a vauge promise of helping an anyonymous someone somewhere; organisations with a frequently horrible ratio of money donnated to actual aid delivered on target. Yes donnations to large international charities can still make rational sense, if you do your research. However the calibration of human instincts towards local, personal concerns is entirely understandable and actually quite sensible (as long as distant concerns are handled by incredibly corrupt, inefficient, layered beaurcracies; there is hope that new Internet-enabled peer-to-peer models could improve this, but then those models also make new forms of scams and oppression practical as well).

P.S. In light of Jub's apparent ontological crisis, I would like to clarify my statement about free will earlier. Unitary personhood and subjective free will is an illusion, but it's a complex illusion that is supported by a lot of cognitive hardware, that humans put a lot of effort into maintaining. This is because like all human intuitive models, it has substantial predictive power (self and others via empathy) and is thus adaptive for typical human social challenges. Free will as a concept is still a useful one, despite being rather fuzzy in practice; it is the basis of moral agents after all. I was taking issue specifically with the idea of applying free will to thoughts, because the reflective ability to control perceptions, emotions and particularly seqitur generation is much weaker (for nearly all humans) than the ability to control actions. For goals, people's ideas about why they do things are notoriously unreliable, which makes many of the questions in this thread hopelessly messy. You accuse someone of helping orphans 'just for imagined good karma', but is that the reality or the rationalisation? Perceptions like that are almost always confabulated after the fact; almost no-one actually works out expected utility equations when selecting how to spend their disposible income. Maybe the 'good' person believes they are doing good deeds for their own sake, but if we traced their neural support paths with sufficiently advanced technology, we'd find they're actually doing it due to an emotional addition to people expressing grattitude, or a deep-seated fear that they will be forgotten when they die. In short teasing apart human goal systems like this is a messy subject that we're still in the early stages of exploring, but we know enough to say that trying to map this stuff to classical moral/philosophical primitives is a fool's errand. Stick with applying moral weighting to the actual output of the system (i.e. people's words and actions) or you will just descend into badly grounded inconsistent nonsense.