Morality and burden upon society

T

timojin

Valued Senior Member
Do this statistics tell anything about morality ?
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-us-birth-rate-20170630-htmlstory.html

Births to unmarried women
Just under 40% (39.7%) of all babies born in the U.S. last year were born to unmarried women. In 2015, that figure was 40.3%.

The birthrate for single mothers peaked in 2007 and 2008, at 51.8 births per 1,000 unmarried women of childbearing age. After falling for eight straight years, it hit 42.1 births per 1,000 unmarried women in 2016.

The proportion of out-of-wedlock births varied a great deal according to race and ethnicity.

Women of Asian descent had the lowest proportion of births to unmarried women (12%), followed by whites (28.4%), Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (47.7%), American Indian or Alaska Natives (68.1%) and blacks (69.7%).

Among Latinas, 52.5% of births involved unmarried women.


 
I think statistics can reflect the general morality of a population. A lower birthrate, whether married or unmarried, reflects a greater moral appreciation of the situation.
 
Beer w/Straw said:
Statistics on morality are zeitgeist.

What is moral today...
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Morals in my view are

(under other names good manners, etiquette, doing the right thing, codes of behaviour etc)

which because they are very personal and low level are not worthy of enacting formal codified laws for everyone to follow

Those who throw out the line

Well it is not against the law but it wasn't moral

are in effect saying

You should have behaved the way I think you should behave

OK if you think the behaviour is bad enough and your views are better than current law

lobby to change the laws

:)
 
timojin said:
Do this statistics tell anything about morality ?
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The fact that the women chose not to abort their children is encouraging. Though a family should also have a father, I respect a woman who moves forward by being a parent. I think there is some moral high ground to be claimed in such a situation.
 
Bowser said:
The fact that the women chose not to abort their children is encouraging. Though a family should also have a father, I respect a woman who moves forward by being a parent. I think there is some moral high ground to be claimed in such a situation.
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At what time is the most ethical to have a abortion?
 
Michael 345 said:
Those who throw out the line

Well it is not against the law but it wasn't moral

are in effect saying

You should have behaved the way I think you should behave
Click to expand...

Yes, and no. Sometimes I think this focus on issues like, "the way I think you should behave", are reflective of the accuser. Not that this is any huge moral violation, or anything; we all do it. But while there are certainly many, many times that someone says in effect that others should be have according to the one's expectations, there are other times when said expectations aren't exclusively attributable to the one.

But we all have examples from parenting, or the workplace, or even online. Lying, for instance. There is a functional reason lying is considered immoral. At some point, the effective saying is incomplete: You should behave the way I think/say you should behave because that is how you said you would behave.

I mean, sure, I might look at a spouse and say it's an expectation that I should behave the way he wants me to behave, but if that behavior is, say, sleeping around, then, yeah, you know, he wants me to behave a certain way because that's what we promised each other.

The differences seem important; many times when the critique as you have expressed appears applicable, it actually isn't because there is a pre-existing reason for the expectation that exists, existed, and obliges, outside the critic.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told a joke last year, about Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), saying that if someone shot Ted Cruz to death on the Senate floor, there wouldn't be a conviction. The joke is about how unpopular Ted Cruz is among his Senate fellows, but it also happens to be potentially true. If another Senator did that on the Senate floor, it is by law an issue for the Senate to deal with, and, you know, if partisan rancor or some manner of American pettiness actually means they can't draw enough votes to convict, it is entirely possible for the shooter to walk away. If enough Senators in the right seats decide, "You know, the son of a bitch had it coming to him", there won't even be a floor trial.

Which ought to be a thought experiment delicately hauled in from beyond the pale, but it's 2017, and Mitch McConnell is in charge of the Senate, so unthinkably stupid outcomes suddenly become possible, so the good thing is that everyone in the Senate is civilized enough to not start taking each other out. I mean, you know ... right?

Still, though, we need not reach out into the realm of morbid slapstick.

Then again, I think the reason I'm so fascinated with the assertion is that it approaches tautalogy if applied within a sheerly nihilistic context; then again, with such nihilism, antisocial is as antisocial does.

More practically, there are conventions in effect, and beyond that, well, there is a reason we might use the word "practically".

Lobbying to change the laws is either a valid point or it isn't, depending on the circumstance. Let's start with this one: Should a penetrating sexual partner have the right to swindle a receiving partner into intercourse? That is, should we pass a law against lying his way into the sack? Do you think it's moral to defraud people in order to achieve sexual intercourse?
 
Tiassa said:
Do you think it's moral to defraud people in order to achieve sexual intercourse?
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Oh the old thin line between was it seduction or rape?

Did she give informed consent or was she unclear about what he proposed?

Was she about to say no when the deed happened?

The jury is out

Try making a law to cover law involving seduction

No thanks

Rape yes no problem

Seduction toss a coin between he said / she said

:)
 
Tiassa said:
Really? On the morality?

I'm just curious, then: Under what circumstances would it be moral to lie his way into the sack?
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For the person lying what ever circumstances present themselves at the time

And there would be a gazillion of those

I would say you would expect males to exceed females in the seduction wars

However it is not beyond females to seduce males into bed for nefarious reasons

Let this rich suger daddy get me pregnant and we get married or I claim child support

:)
 
Michael 345 said:
But I trust you are not implying I am a bad person
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It's more the requisite dysfunction that I worry about. You know, practical problems.

Antisocial is as antisocial does; culpability is a separate question from danger.
 
Tiassa said:
It's more the requisite dysfunction that I worry about. You know, practical problems.

Antisocial is as antisocial does; culpability is a separate question from danger.
Click to expand...

No dysfunction

No practical problems - unless you count a overgrown garden

Not antisocial

No door bell ringing by police or anyone else saying I am culpable for anything

:)
 
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