What you do doesn't change your capacity, but it is a measure. If your thought process is literally "I know I could behave better, but I don't care because it doesn't change anything" then you have in fact proven that your capacity for good behavior is proportional to your immediate perception of return on that investment.
If I know I can behave better, then my capacity is obviously not proportional to my immediate perception of a return on my investment. If I did not have the capacity for both, I could not have chosen in the first place.
Sticky. Depends on the internal dialogue guiding decision making. If it's "Well this would seem like the better thing to do, but I'm not going to because this other option benefits me more and no one else is going to know about it anyway", then I believe that is a showing of true colors. Knowing that one can behave better indicates potential. If one knows of an option, then obviously they could choose to take it. That is a potential. Whether one lives up to that potential or not is what I see as a measure of present capacity, as their decision to take that option is filtered through a process where pros/cons are weighed. Morality is only one factor among many. If they know that one decision would be morally better, but other factors carry more weight to them personally than morality, then I see that as a demonstration of their current capacity for moral behavior.
Apparently, if it doesn't directly make the world a better place, then personal gain is favorable.
It is only favorable if you think that is favorable, and gain is a relative assessment as well, so you can not make that kind of assertion in a generalized and objective fashion. If my action or inaction would not make the world a better place, but my personal tastes favor that action or inaction, it would still be favorable to chose what I perceive to be the moral good.
Unless you believe that somehow you're incredibly special and very few people have a similar thought process to yours, then it is safe to assume that a considerable portion of the population will operate in the same fashion as you. If those people behave selfishly any time they're not convinced that their decisions will have broad implications for society, then that's a lot of selfish behavior, the sum of which DOES have broad implications for society.
Certainly, but, in our fictional scenario, I am not making moral decisions for many people. I am making moral decisions for myself, and there is no mechanism by which my moral or immoral behaviour will compel those people to behave in a similar fashion without knowledge of the act.
Yeah, gain is a relative assessment, but I don't see how that is relevant in theoretical scenarios where, for instance, "loved one" is a clear indication of personal value. Some people may not have loved ones at all, but that's not the point here. You are threatened with losing someone that you greatly value. You can kill someone else to avoid this loss. Do you do it or not?
As for making the world a better place, I think that's a question of how broad a perspective you take on your actions. I know that if I press this, you'll point out the relativity of what makes a "better world". I've said it before, but I'll reiterate. Very very very few people actually want to live in a world where they need to fear other people taking advantage of them for personal gain. Sure, it's an assumption on my part, but I think it's a safe one. By extension, it is a violation of most people's morality, even from a relative position, to reinforce the existence of a world where people take advantage of each other for their own benefit. That doesn't mean that people won't do it, but it's widely understood to be immoral.
In the case of the second moral dilemma of this thread, your decision to kill the guy may not have influence over anyone else's decision. But if you base your decision off of this criteria, then you can reasonably assume that other people will also give comparable weight to this criteria. So you have given yourself reason to fear others. Not something anyone wants. And even if your decision has no influence over anyone else, your isolated action still reinforces the existence of a world where people act in such a manner.
Even if you are the only person in the world that does such a thing, that means that is 1 person in the world who does such a thing, which is 1 step closer to a world where people do such things, which is not a desirable outcome, and thus makes it an immoral action. Make sense?
Or if you don't believe in the above, then I see two directions you can go. Perhaps you believe that if you hold yourself to a higher standard, that you'll just be better than everyone else, giving up on personal gain while everyone else continues to behave selfishly and it will all be pointless in the end. What a pretentious view. Or you could go the other way and assume that enough people hold better standards of behavior than you that your isolated acts of selfishness won't matter. A world made of good people can support a few bad ones, right? This one doesn't look so good, either.
That is a false assumption wrapped in a false dilemma wrapped in an appeal to consequences, like some manner of fallacious philosophical turducken.
Appeal to Consequences
The argument, “you should not believe X, because that would mean you are pretentious or selfish, and would be pointless,” is not a valid one. Objective things are not invalid merely because we do not like them.
False Dilemma
You assume that I can either believe you, be pretentious, or be selfish. I shall take option D.
False Assumption
You use words like “better”, “good”, and “higher standard” like some manner of objective truths. You define what is better and good by equating bad with selfishness, you decide that your first option is pointless, and then you use that to make a general statement about what people should do: “This one doesn't look so good, either.” That is assuming that morals are not relative to individuals, but they are. You even admitted that they are.
My Assertion: Your own decision making process is a guide by which you can predict how other people will behave.
Assumption: The majority of people hold a limited set of similar values (See: Do not want to live in a world where they have to fear being exploited by others).
You could argue that assumption, but you instead argued the assertion but claiming that your decision would have no influence over anyone else's decisions.
Ok. So let's examine this counter-claim while maintaining the assumption. In this case, you either believe that the majority of people will betray their values and behave immorally, and if you hold true to your values that you will just be giving up on personal gain to be better than everyone else while not making the world a better place, and thus doing nothing but pointlessly throwing away personal gain. Or the other option is that you believe everyone will hold true to their values and behave morally, and that if you behave immorally it won't matter because your decision won't influence anyone else to behave immorally, so you'll get free personal gain without making an already good world a worse place. You can just get away with being the bad guy.
The following is my personal perspective, and how I try to live my life.
Honestly, I am abhorred and uplifted by various instances of human behavior every single day. I don't like the current state of the world, as I think those who behave selfishly end up in positions of greater influence. However, I desperately cling to a belief that society can reach a higher standard. I could not go on living in this world unless I did.
My my, society not good enough for you, eh? You are of far too much moral character to suffer the evils of everyone else, and, if you did not think everyone could be better, you just would not be able to stay here and smell the stink of humanity. You would just have to kill yourself. Such a view would seem to be every bit as pretentious as the option you deemed pretentious. One could say that your whole philosophy is downright arrogant, as, not only do you consider yourself the standard by which humanity should be judged, you are assuming that no one is better than you. You said so in the following post.
It is the knowledge that it is likely other people will encounter similar circumstances, and you cannot realistically expect them to make a better decision than you do.
Do you really consider yourself the paragon of your moral code? I have a hard time believing that you never dissappoint yourself. Even the god of salmon makes mistakes. (Or are you a god-salmon?)
I see society as the sum of all human behavior. I cannot maintain a belief that that sum can reach a positive unless I can succeed in maintaining a personal standard at the level I wish to see. Even more importantly, that state of society defined by a standard of responsible, mature, and compassionate behavior X literally cannot exist until a large enough portion of the population actually maintains X as a personal standard. The first step to achieving this is to achieve it myself, and the more people realize this, the more capable we are of moving forward.
Perhaps, but that is not what you have said. You have asserted that your good action is somehow a demonstration of what you can expect from humanity, and you assert that you can change what you expect from humanity by changing your behaviour.
The following is my personal perspective, and how I try to live my life.
I never claimed to be perfect. The ONLY thing I was saying with all of this is I try to take a broad perspective and give morality the greatest weight as a factor in all of my decision making. I think it can be easily demonstrated that a considerable portion of people do not operate this way, at least enough to restrain society as a whole from being a pleasant thing. I get criticised all the time for not being more selfish, or others defend their own behavior, not by trying to say that it is right but by pointing out how most would do the same. People tend to be short-sighted (unaware of moral implications), cynical (uninterested in/given up on morality because others appear to be uninterested in morality), or impulsive (do things they know to be wrong because it feels better).
I don't think this makes me a better person. I can and do at various times fall into short-sightedness, cynicism, or impulsiveness. There are things about myself that I don't like. I'm also well aware that there are people in the world with more integrity than I.
I only see two differences between myself and the majority of people. First, I feel like I try harder than most. Just a feeling. I'm well aware it's nothing more than that, and plenty of people probably feel the same way. Second, and most importantly, is I don't believe that I am fundamentally different from anyone else. Most people with this belief become cynical as they observe their own faults and realize that others have the same faults. I become optimistic as I realize that I am capable of overcoming my faults, and the more I succeed in doing so, the more I know that others can do so as well.
The best example I know is the earlier one I mentioned regarding pacifism. It is literally impossible for a world where people do not use violence to exist if I make use of violence. People say that such idealism is impractical, because it relies on an ideal situation to operate. They're completely missing the point. The point is to align oneself with that ideal situation to allow it the potential to exist.
It is also impossible for a world where people do not use violence to exist whether you use violence or not, so I do not see why you would use that to support your decision.
If I am capable of restraining myself from violent behavior, than I have no reason to believe that others aren't also capable. Thus, such a world is possible. Plus, this attitude is absolutely self-defeating. If you don't believe that something is possible and use this reasoning to justify taking action that actually makes it impossible, than of course it becomes impossible, but that is nobody's fault but yours.
Putting yourself at a disadvantage by not using violence will only permit those that have no such scruples to use violence against you. Law enforcement is paid to use violence so the ordinary citizen can be a pacifist from the comfort of a computer chair while he takes solace in the knowledge that, because he is a pacifist, he can expect other people to be pacifists. If he was not, well, all hope for humanity would be lost. Such a good thing that we have him around to do that.
I'm going to ignore this, so that this doesn't devolve into a political argument.
I am not a pacifist. It is an easy thing to say what one would do under improbable circumstances, but I hope I would fight, kill, and die in the defense of the innocent, as such pleases me, and I find men who would not do the same rather distasteful. Other people are not pacifists, your being a pacifist will not make them pacifists, and, sometimes, violence is the only way to deal with violent people.
I actually agree with you in a sense. I'm going to quote what I said on this earlier in the thread.
For instance, I am a pacifist, but I get rather technical about putting my pacifism through the above criteria. The core reasoning for being a pacifist is that I do not want to live in a world where people use violence as a tool to solve problems. If I use violence as a tool to solve my problems, even if that problem is being faced with violence, then I directly reinforce the existence of a world where people use violence to solve their problems. To say otherwise is literally the same as saying that 1+1=0. However, I also don't want to live in a world where people value their personal ideologies over the lives of others, so I am more likely (as personal judgement deems necessary) to use violence in defence of another than I am in defence of myself, unless I know that they are of the same mind as I. I am also a parent of two very young children whose well-being is directly related to mine, so I am thereby required to see to my own safety, even if that involves betraying my pacifism, at least until they are able to care for themselves.
I also want to ask you some things. How do you judge innocence? If everyone makes use of violence when they think it's necessary, then who is innocent? How do you recognize, when acting in defense of another, if your opponent also believes they are acting in defense of another? What is the end goal of your use of violence in combating violent people? To lessen the amount of violence in the world? How does that actually accomplish that goal? If that isn't your goal, then what is the actual point?
I am not an absolutist. I recognize that violence is often a responsible course of action. I don't begrudge anyone for acting in self-defense. I also think it's wrong not to defend others. However, I am absolutely opposed to institutional policies of violence (as in law enforcement or war), and promote as much awareness of the implications of violent action in any form and avoidance of it wherever possible.
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