Thursday, September 16, 2010

Our moral code is out of date


Mr. Yaron Brook says,


If morality is about the pursuit of your own success and happiness, then giving money away to strangers is, in comparison, not a morally significant act. (And it's outright wrong if done on the premise that renunciation is moral.)

Personally, I would take no offense to Yaron Brook's moralist label for myself. I would state, for his enlightenment, I neither ignore nor condemn the earning of money. Yaron Brook's above statement with parenthetical is like the loaded mouse trap which failed to spring.

First, he packages an updated morality under the Science, freedom and the pursuit of personal profit label.

Then, he peddles his Science, freedom and the pursuit of personal profit morality dogma for our learning on Gates and Buffett's coattails, two men well-known of good reputation.

Brook won't thread the morality question on those who amass their fortunes in drug trade and other evils. Even less would he dare thread on them were they to give away their money as benefactors to charitable non-profit organizations. Furthermore, do you think he would pounce were a drug lord to renounce his riches and became an eager benefactor as the result of moral pangs in his conscience? Hence, Yaron Brook's moral argument could no more spring to catch a mouse than a evil doer among men.

This is not an updated moral code. However, it is quickly becoming known as the blind-folded atheists' anemic morality.

2 comments:

  1. "Brook won't thread the morality question..."

    Of course not, as drugs are inimical to a healthy life they cannot be a value. Giving away as a form of self-sacrifice also falls into this category and is excluded from the moral life. At best donating to a worthy (objectively rational) cause is amoral since the purpose of life personal happiness not service to others, your life is your own. And if a drug lord was truly seeking amends he would crawl under the nearest rock and never come out again.

    As to your last point there's no such thing as atheistic morality. Atheism is a specific attitude toward the non existence of God. There is no ideology or morality attached to it. Atheists come in many different varieties in politics as well as ethics. If you want to criticize Brook you should speak directly to the ethics he does support, Ayn Rand's rational egoism as part of her philosophy Objectivism.

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  2. I appreciate your comment, Michael. Brook's article is a virtual coming out of what you call the atheists' "attitude". You can say there is no ideology or morality attached to atheism and dilute the collective atheist body as coming in many different varieties. The fact remains his judgment of giving as being "outright wrong" if done on the premise of renunciation is no different than your judgment of the drug lord seeking amends. His and yours are moral judgments.

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