Prohibitive or positive?

[Lark]

Would you describe your moral philosophy or religion as being prohibitive or positive, where "positive" means affirmative, pro-active or promoting rather than a value judgement or endorsement.

I will give examples, I have read about some formulations of divine judgement within some stories or sects of Judahism which suggest that God will demand an account from man on the basis not simply of his sins, errors or transgressions against God but his omissions and failures to enjoy life availing of all the opportunities for happiness and joy it permits.

I just got through reading a story in Bertrand Russell's Nightmares of Eminent Persons in which a metaphysician has a nightmare about hell and Satan in which Satan is a negation, pure negation, having a negative boy aswell as a negative mind, the story ends with a brief discussion of existence ending in the metaphysican determining not to use the word "not" ever again and banishing Satan as a bad linguistic habit but in the course of the story it describes every moralist whose philosophy is based upon "dont" or who lets "you shall not wait on you would", every dictator etc. all add up eventually to Satan.

It got me thinking as to whether moral philosophy or religion involve greater requirements not to do certain things than they require that people do do things and why, have you ever thought about this?

 

[Dave Fallon]

If I had to choose one or the other, I would say "positive". However, I think both positive and prohibitive aspects are important for a person to attain moral balance. Still, I think I agree with you that too many prohibitive aspects could lead to bad things, such as dictatorship.

 

[Lark]

If I had to choose one or the other, I would say "positive". However, I think both positive and prohibitive aspects are important for a person to attain moral balance. Still, I think I agree with you that too many prohibitive aspects could lead to bad things, such as dictatorship.

I know what you mean, I'm not personally that opposed to recommendations of abstemonious behaviour. Although mainly because I think we live in a culture of excess, one which has as a foundation maximising consumption rather than optimising consumption and the having mode of existence rather than the being mode of existence.

A lot the more libertine and permissive doctrines I've encountered are generally dated, belonging to times of much greater moral restraint, possibly restraint to a fault. Although the people who adopt them dont consider that, they adopt them like they are brand new because they are new to them and as though the weak authority or permissiveness of the day to day arent factors at all.

All that said the idea that people need to proactively do and act and be instead of some how stop and become inert is an interesting idea.

 

[sprinkles]

Logically a positive in this sense is only an negated negation.

In fact, negation is more logically useful. Consider the fact that you can make every logic gate with a combination of NOR gates (negation of or) but this is not true of OR gates.

Similarly you can also make any gate with NAND gates, including NOR gates, but this is not true of the positive AND gate.

 

[sprinkles]

Or to say what I just said in English:

With negatives you could have every construction, including positive ones. With positives you cannot have every construction.

With positives if you ever needed to exclude an action for whatever reason, you could only do so by outlining every single allowable action and have this one action be excluded for not being on the list. Without negatives all things are permitted, unless the list of "do's" are the ONLY things you can do, thereby excluding by omission.

 

[Khalid]

Would you describe your moral philosophy or religion as being prohibitive or positive, where "positive" means affirmative, pro-active or promoting rather than a value judgement or endorsement.

I will give examples, I have read about some formulations of divine judgement within some stories or sects of Judahism which suggest that God will demand an account from man on the basis not simply of his sins, errors or transgressions against God but his omissions and failures to enjoy life availing of all the opportunities for happiness and joy it permits.

I just got through reading a story in Bertrand Russell's Nightmares of Eminent Persons in which a metaphysician has a nightmare about hell and Satan in which Satan is a negation, pure negation, having a negative boy aswell as a negative mind, the story ends with a brief discussion of existence ending in the metaphysican determining not to use the word "not" ever again and banishing Satan as a bad linguistic habit but in the course of the story it describes every moralist whose philosophy is based upon "dont" or who lets "you shall not wait on you would", every dictator etc. all add up eventually to Satan.

It got me thinking as to whether moral philosophy or religion involve greater requirements not to do certain things than they require that people do do things and why, have you ever thought about this?

Dear sir,

I'm a Muslim and I can say that there are both aspects to my belief, some prohibitive, some positive – this words understood in the way they're being discussed here. It's both and at the same time. When there's something "forbidden" to us, that's so because it is in the way of the kind of men (and women, of course) we want to be. I believe the positive aspect is clear here, even if some can't see. When I tell people I don't fornicate, for example, they look me as if I was a Martian, and usually give me a "you-don't-know-what-you're-missing" look; but I do know what I'm missing, I know the kind of man I can become if I do such and such things, and I also know the kind of man I actually want to be; by weighting the two, I can choose the behaviors that will help me in getting closer to the latter and not the former.

I actually have thought about this, and it couldn't be different in my case. But since you're mentioning stories, we can think about one of those that Chesterton most liked. It's about a little bird that is freed by a man and dies. Our situation is similar to a caged bird's: we're not ready for total freedom, it would destroy us – as the experience of trying clearly shows. "Oh, but you gotta consider the bird's home is the nature, and he wouldn't die if he wasn't taken from there in the first place!" Yes, and this world isn't our true home, but we can't do much about this right now. We can dislike this, and we can even rebel against it for some time, but the reality is what it is; you can accept it and live in accord with it, otherwise you can experience a living hell. If you did go far enough to see how bad the path of "total freedom in every aspect of your life" is (and if you're lucky enough to come back), the "rules" people declare as being "too demanding" will look like panaceas, like pearls shining in the darkness – an even luckier man wouldn't need to thread in (and into) the darkness to realize that: he would trust the wise ones that came before and avoid doing some things.

A pseudo-digression before finishing: Bertrand Russell was true enough to what he believed, he actually tried to employ with his own family the morals he wrote about. Kudos for him on doing that, but his decision destroyed the family, as his daughter could testify – and a digression: by the way, something like that happened to Hugo Chavez: we know the health system in Communist countries is terrible, but they say it is "the best in the world" (think, for example, about what they say of Cuba; then compare it to what a Cuban would say...); Chavez was consistent: being as sick as he was, he could actually be saved if he had chosen to forget all about the propaganda and look for some good hospital, but no, Cuba it was! (Brazilian ex-president, Lula, did the opposite: soon after saying our public health care is "almost as good as first world countries'", he got cancer. Public hospital, with all those persons lying in the ground? Oh, no! Best Brazilian hospital [with the highest prices] it is!)

Anyway, this is a good discussion. Thank you for it.

My best regards.

 

[Cornerstone]

It's both and at the same time. When there's something "forbidden" to us, that's so because it is in the way of the kind of men (and women, of course) we want to be.

This is similar to my beliefs. It is not a matter of a thing being forbidden because it is wrong and wrong is wrong. It is because all things have consequences and with some things the pain of the consequence, often in how it changes ones character, is not worth the pleasure of the 'sin'. The problem I often have, since I do not follow an organised religion, is that I feel isolated from culture and from 'normal' human experience. I can't point to a book and be instantly justified. I have to admit it is me who chooses not to engage in what are most likely quite enjoyable activities and experiences on a certain level of my being.

I make mistakes still. Ironically, I sometimes make worse mistakes when I struggle to live a virtuous life. I do think that positive action makes the 'prohibitive' side of life easier because positive action contains within it its own reward. It took me a long time to see how true that is and even now I often forget in moments of weakness.

 

[Radiantshadow]

Positive, though some prohibitive teachings and behaviors are necessary.

I can only think of behaviorism in response, as I've been using it a lot lately: it is more effective and efficient to teach someone what you want them to do than what you don't, as cycling through "nots" will not necessarily arrive you at your goal. Housetraining a dog, while a simple and mechanical activity, demonstrates this point. Modeling when and where you want your dog to mess, giving him the opportunities to do it, and rewarding him generously when he does so will make him infinitely more likely to do it consistently than punishing him when he messes in an inappropriate spot, as he will probably only learn that he cannot do so with you present because it makes you angry. When you are home and nature's call comes, your dog will more likely than not find a distant or obscure place in the house to mess because it isn't in front of you and he innately does not want to displease you. You will therefore have to chase him out of every messing spot he comes up with in the house until he finds the right one - a very inefficient process.

Along a similar vein, people are naturally predisposed to be prosocial, to want to connect and work together. We may be taught and conditioned otherwise by our life experiences, but that is one of our basic drives. Seeing others benefit, either passively or as a result of our actions, is rewarding for our brains and typically increases positive affect. The ineffective or excessive use of punitive measures - generally demarcated at "causing psychic or physical impairment" - only serves to ostracize and repress, to make people feel unworthy and dirty. I would rather see mutually beneficial cooperation and the cool things that happen when people work together because they genuinely know it will reward them more than toiling alone.