The Morality of Objects

[sidhe]

This is something that's bothered me for a while.

We often hear that drugs, alcohol, pornography, guns, etc. are immoral.

Do inanimate objects have any moral value on their own?

I personally feel that objects have no morality. They are utterly amoral. The actions people take using objects can be either moral or immoral.

Example: Piano wire. Someone can take the piano wire, string it into a piano, and play beautiful music - which would be both moral and aesthetically pleasing. Or, someone could garrotte another person with it.

Does the fact that piano wire could be used for a murder make it immoral in and of itself?

I would hold the position that an object must be amoral, because it is incapable of action, and actions are what hold moral value.

I'd just like to see what other people think.

 

[Spinrad]

This is something that's bothered me for a while.

We often hear that drugs, alcohol, pornography, guns, etc. are immoral.

Do inanimate objects have any moral value on their own?

I personally feel that objects have no morality. They are utterly amoral. The actions people take using objects can be either moral or immoral.

Example: Piano wire. Someone can take the piano wire, string it into a piano, and play beautiful music - which would be both moral and aesthetically pleasing. Or, someone could garrotte another person with it.

Does the fact that piano wire could be used for a murder make it immoral in and of itself?

I would hold the position that an object must be amoral, because it is incapable of action, and actions are what hold moral value.

I'd just like to see what other people think.

Of course inanimate objects have no morality.

 

[sidhe]

That's what I'm saying. But, I've heard people say that some objects are immoral in and of themselves. I want to see the reasoning behind that.

 

[Spinrad]

It's not moral to laugh at the stupid.

 

[FSTDT]

I personally feel that objects have no morality. They are utterly amoral. The actions people take using objects can be either moral or immoral.

Just a few things:

- Anything that is property generally has moral value.

- Probably, it would be morally wrong to put up a painting glorifying Hitler in Holocaust museum.

- If you believe religion has anything to do with morality, then many religions prescribe against idoltry.

- A hot stove has a different morally relevant component than a cool stove.

- Environmentalists believe nature is worth conserving in itself.

- A gun definitely has a moral component distinct from, say, safety scissors.

- A defribulator has a different moral component from a pizza slicer.

- Many problem of evil arguments are built on the premise that natural disastors like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods are indicative of a kind of "natural evil".

- There are moral reasons for preserving two tons of grain and corn that don't apply to preserving two tons of rocks.

I've heard people say that some objects are immoral in and of themselves.

I can only think of "mother nature" remotely fitting the description, but if wanted to get technical practically nothing has intrinsic value all by itself, not even members of the human species.

Very few things apart from happiness, pleasure, satisfaction, and dissatisfaction have intrinsic have intrinsic moral value, but everything else is measured with its utility to something else. Almost everything that is valuable is only instrumentally or extrinsically valuable in some way, and extrinsic reasons can certainly apply to non-living objects.

 

[Arnold_Philips]

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
- Hamlet (Act II, Scene II).

 

[sister_maynard]

Exactly. Objects, in and of themselves, have no moral value. We see some objects as evil, but that's likely due to our own experiences. When we look at guns, we think of all of the times we've seen people using guns to hurt and kill each other, both in real life and the media. You could use a gun as a paperweight or something similarly harmless, but that's not a natural connotation of a gun for us.

 

[jayem]

I'd agree that objects have no intrinsic moral value, but could they acquire a moral component in how they are obtained? For example:

Does clothing or other items produced by child labor raise moral issues?

Are "blood" diamonds mined or obtained under inhuman conditions morally questionable? (there is another thread on this very point.)

Is money is acquired by criminal activity morally tainted?


Actions certainly have moral value. So do moral concerns attach to objects as a result of the actions that produced them?

Edited to add: I just remembered a few personal examples. My wife is a big time animal lover. So she was appalled when I bought an ivory carving some years ago. I wanted to bid on a really neat tortoise shell box at an auction a while back, but she wouldn't hear of it. Yet she does have a fur coat. So are these kinds of objects immoral or not?

 

[Silent Bob]

So she was appalled when I bought an ivory carving some years ago. I wanted to bid on a really neat tortoise shell box at an auction a while back, but she wouldn't hear of it. Yet she does have a fur coat.

I don't mean to judge but perhaps she is being a bit hypocritical?

About the morality of objects, an object of itself is amoral. It is what we do with it that makes it's use moral or immoral.

 

[Helo]

Objects in and of themselves are not good or bad.

They can be used for good or bad and can cause good or bad, but in and of themselves are morally neutral.

A knife is a good example. In the hands of a serial killer it becomes symbolic of evil. The same knife in the hands of a housewife becomes a tool to provide for a family that she loves.

 

[gwenmead]

I gotta jump on the "objects are amoral in and of themselves" bandwagon here too.

Off the top of my head I can't think of a single item or object that has any moral value in and of itself. Actions taken in using or producing the object may have some moral value, but the item itself does not. I think this applies to words, even, in the sense that words are human creations and human tools, and can be used either to help or hurt. (George Carlin has a number of great sketches about this - the "7 Words you Can't Say on Television" one being a classic.)

But I'm really just sort of repeating and agreeing with what's been said already.

 

[Spinrad]

Perhaps the questions we ask are just so much obfuscation. A way to define the parameters so that we can tread close without actually tripping over "the line". I could own all the guns in the world, keep them in perfect working order, loaded and at hand, but if I never fire one at a live target the morality of any of this situation is irrelevant. Even if I gathered them with the intent to destroy humanity one gunshot at a time, it makes no difference. Until I pull the trigger the morality simply is no one else's business. Same with porn, lust, avarice, racism, sexism, ageism, homosexulaism...all of it. I could dispise jews from now till the cows come home, but if I never indicate that I do no moral questions can be legitimately asked.

I don't, by the way. I hate Christians.

 

[gwenmead]

As an aside, I also maintain that to place blame for immoral use of an object on the object itself, instead of the user of the object, indicates a fundamental irresponsibility on the part of the user.

If one has too much to drink, for instance, and wrecks their car while driving drunk, the alcohol isn't the problem. The drinker is the problem. Hence, why things like Prohibition never made sense to me.

Although I suppose it's a lot easier to remove alcohol from the general population than it is to compel an alcoholic to adopt sobriety. Objects are certainly easier to manipulate than people.

But I'm kind of digressing.

 

[Rae]

Objects themselves are neutral. Human reactions to them are not.

 

[David Gould]

As I think morality is a human construct and that humans are objects, morality could be applied to objects if we want it to.

For example, some people claim that a person who murders is immoral. Yet they also claim that a tornado is not. Yet both operate under the same laws of physics. We arbitrarily decide that morality attaches to the first but not the second. But there is nothing wrong with doing that, because morality is whatever we decide it to be.