Is Immorality Necessary for Morality?

[Guest Lottie]

Suggestion by Stellar.

Is immorality sometimes necessary in the interests of morality?

Is it moral to commit immoral acts in order to achieve a moral end result? Its a more specific version of "do the ends justify the means."

Looking for two debaters.

Edited May 19, 2006 by AztecInca

[Carajbu]

I'll be against it.

[AztecInca]

Qarrah you have already signed up for and started another debate. There is no rule stating that you cannot compete in more than one debate at a time but you need to be completly sure you can compete in and finish both debates.

I am more than happy to allow you to compete in this one as well as the other debate but please have a good, hard think about it first. Let me know by PM if you wish to continue or not.

Edit: Qarrah has decided yo concentrate on her other debate so both positions for this debate are still open to any who wish to participate.

Edited February 21, 2006 by AztecInca

[Guest Lottie]

Still looking for 2 participants!

[Apple]

I stand for it. I will debate pro.

[AztecInca]

^Thanks Apple.

We are now looking for one member to debate that immorality is not sometimes necessary in the interests of morality.

Edited March 7, 2006 by AztecInca

[Guest Lottie]

Still looking for someone to debate against Apple.

[RamboIII]

I am signed up for another debate but I will try my best to keep up with both debates. I'll be negative. Immortality is NOT necessary for morality- in present day terms, remember.

Should I wait for Apple's first post or should I begin?

Edited April 11, 2006 by RamboIII

[AztecInca]

Thank-you Rambo!

Apple will debating that immorality is sometimes necessary while RamboIII will be debating that immorality is not necessary to achieve a moral end result

This will be a 1v1 formal debate.

An Introduction, 5 bodily posts and a conclusion from each participant. No Flaming, bad manners or profantities will be tolerated. Please make sure you quote ALL your sources!

Please be aware that:

There is a point deduction for debaters who fail to make a post within the 7 day time frame. The deductions will be 2 points for every day the participant fails to post after the 7 days.

This is to ensure that debates continue in a timely fashion. If for any reason you cannot post within the 7 days, please ensure that you let myself , Tiddlyjen or Lottie know to avoid having the points taken off your debate.

If, however the participant does not then attempt to make a post for up to 2 weeks after the 7 day rule has started an immediate disqualification will occur.

Good luck Aztec.

[Apple]

Morality cannot exsist without immorality, therefore instead of it being just sometimes unavoidadble the commit an immoral act to get a moral outcome, it is nessecary for immorality to have morality, therefore, in one way or another, you cannot, in no situation, on any plane of exsistance, within the realms of any perception, have a moral outcome without first an immoral act. A moral act will always, somewhere be considered an immoral act, as the past clearly shows. Morality cannot even exsist without immorality.

Morality- a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons. This definition clearly states that morality exists within ‘specified conditions…put forward by all rational persons’. This indicates that sense of morality isn’t the same within different groups on opposite ends of the ‘condition’. While one general opinion views itself and it’s actions as moral, another may view these same actions as immoral. In a general situation, being that party A has conducted themselves in a manner they believe moral and right by their own standards, party B sees this conduct as immoral and contradictory to their own standards of morality. Therefore, without two groups of people having opposite ideas of what is moral or immoral, the two cannot exist. You cannot have a moral outcome without having commited an immoral act.

A wise man once said that every action has an opposite and equal reaction. This implies balance in all things, you cannot jump without landing, you cannot land without jumping, therefore you cannot have an understanding of what is moral without an understanding of what is immoral. Without an immoral example, without seeing the immoral effects of certain actions, how could we or can we decipher the difference between immoral and moral. First there must be the immoral action, with the immoral effect and leads to the knowledge that the immoral act was, indeed, immoral. Morality cannot exist without immorality. There is always error before perfection, you must crawl before you can walk. You cannot have morality without having comitted the immoral act beforehand, otherwise, there would be no morality.

Settlers in Salem, Massachusetts fought a religious and political battle within themselves. Through the believed moral act of burning the accused in the Salem Witch Trials, they discovered a new understanding in which they saw the immorality in their acts, eventually having the moral effect of the being the first step towards the moral idea of national tolerance. It gave us the true freedom to practice our own individual beliefs. This is just one of every immoral act comitted that eventually had a moral outcome, if the act had not been committed there would be no understanding of the oppisite moral action.

Morality is very different for each one of us, it can be hard to decide what is generally moral and immoral. Morality is an opinion, it varies from person to person, therefore, from both sides, all moral acts can be seen as immoral, and all immoral acts can be seen as moral. We learn from experience and we cannot know what morality is until we’ve experience immorality. Neither can exist without the other. You cannot have a moral outcome without first an immoral act commited somewhere, by someone. Immorality is always nessecary for morality.

Edited April 15, 2006 by Apple

[RamboIII]

Introduction

I would like to tell you, Apple, that debating is not to win but to learn something so tweaking the definitions in your favor is not the moral way to do it. Instead, I would like to suggest that we debate what Stellar probably had in mind- must a person or group of people act against moral lifestyle in order to live a moral life.

For my introduction I would simply like to state my main argument and how I will debate this topic.

Two wrongs certainly do not create a right. Take discrimination for an example. There is a small town in America that was separated, blacks and whites, because of an event that took place long ago. For that day on, the two races were separate. Recently, a group of white men got back at the blacks by torchering and then slaughtering a black man. This immoral act certainly did not lead to morality.

When someone does something against the average moral lifestyle, that person will go slower in life, living in regret. Some day they will crack and give up on themselves OR be forgiven by who they did something wrong to.

Instead of immorality, face faith as your key to success. This is a post at a different forum:

Faith, to me, is where your heart is and what you believe in.

To have faith in God, you must love Him. To have faith in yourself, you must believe in yourself.

Faith is probably the most important thing in the universe. Those who made such incredible discoveries did so because they had faith in themselves. They had faith to break out and do something new, faith in themselves to do what no one else was doing to make the world a better place.

In my opinion, faith leads you to succes. Succes is not money, however, it is the things that are real in life, things that will follow you beyond the grave. Love, respect,ect. are what succes really means and when you have faith in yourself succes is yours.

Faith is the secret of the world- not some law of attraction. It can carve perfection and will help better the world. Lack of faith is what provokes war and hatred. Maintain world-wide faith and achieve world peace, world perfection.

Faith is a better way to seek success.

Good luck in the rest of the debate...keep it fair! Remember, anything immoral is immoral no matter what the end result is. Seeking morality with immorality only means you have a moral present, what about the past?

Edited April 16, 2006 by RamboIII

[Apple]

Introduction

I would like to tell you, Apple, that debating is not to win but to learn something so tweaking the definitions in your favor is not the moral way to do it. Instead, I would like to suggest that we debate what Stellar probably had in mind- must a person or group of people act against moral lifestyle in order to live a moral life.

To win? Who said anything about winning? I simply gave my view and opinion upon the topic the way I precieved, just as you are giving your opinion on the same topic the way you precieve it. The question was "Is it sometimes necessary for immorality in order to reach a moral outcome?". I have answered this question by explaing that it is not just sometimes unaviodable, it is necessary for each to exsist, or there would be neither. This is what I believe.

That definition that I "tweaked", supposedly, means just what it says. Morality is difined differently for each of us, it is a code of conduct created by cultures to maintain peace and tranquility and is in exsistance only because immoralities had previously been acted upon.

For my introduction I would simply like to state my main argument and how I will debate this topic.

Two wrongs certainly do not create a right. Take discrimination for an example. There is a small town in America that was separated, blacks and whites, because of an event that took place long ago. For that day on, the two races were separate. Recently, a group of white men got back at the blacks by torchering and then slaughtering a black man. This immoral act certainly did not lead to morality.

Or did it. Without the public eye having the ability to see the harshness of racial differences then their would be no steps taken toward stopping it. These steps would be an example of someone going against a certaain lifestyle they believe immoral, but it would not give them a moral life. To take steps against someone else's life makes one's life niether moral or immoral. Just because you give charity dosn't mean your lifestyle is moral, only your action.

When someone does something against the average moral lifestyle, that person will go slower in life, living in regret. Some day they will crack and give up on themselves OR be forgiven by who they did something wrong to. .

Do you claim this is the case of every living human being? Do you think there is an average moral lifestyle, I mean, considering the differences in culture and ethnicity, the very things that help shape one's own personal system of moral?

Faith, to me, is where your heart is and what you believe in.

To have faith in God, you must love Him. To have faith in yourself, you must believe in yourself.

Faith is probably the most important thing in the universe. Those who made such incredible discoveries did so because they had faith in themselves. They had faith to break out and do something new, faith in themselves to do what no one else was doing to make the world a better place.

In my opinion, faith leads you to succes. Succes is not money, however, it is the things that are real in life, things that will follow you beyond the grave. Love, respect,ect. are what succes really means and when you have faith in yourself succes is yours.

Faith is the secret of the world- not some law of attraction. It can carve perfection and will help better the world. Lack of faith is what provokes war and hatred. Maintain world-wide faith and achieve world peace, world perfection.

Faith is a better way to seek success.

Is this an example of morality? I'm not entirely sure you understand what morality is. Faith and morality are two very different things. Although faith and ethnicity may play a role in choosing the morals that are passed down, morality is not faith. Morality are, well, morals. They are rules, guidlines, if you will, to life, passed down from one person to the other through words of experience and one's own personal experience.

Good luck in the rest of the debate...keep it fair! Remember, anything immoral is immoral no matter what the end result is. Seeking morality with immorality only means you have a moral present, what about the past?

I agree that anything immoral is immoral no matter the outcome, but the question is "Is immorality sometimes nessecary for a moral outcome?", and I am debating pro, which means I convince everyone that immorality is, at times nessecary for morality, but I went farther and decided to debate that Immorality is always nessecar for morality, and you are debating con, which means that you have to argue that immorality is not necessary for morality. Now, I'm having a hard time finding exactly how faith has anything to do with whether one is neccesary for the other or not. And, what makes a frame of time either moral or immoral.

A lifestyle cannot be moral or immoral. Moralities are actions. To say that one's life is moral or immoral is to accuse one of performing an immoral action every second of every minuet of one's life.

To repeat my theory: Morality cannot exsist without immorality. The way the human mind learns is trial and error, frist their must be the mistake in order to understand the effect of the mistake to further understand that in order to get the desired outcome the mistake must not be made again. Like morality, you must first know what Immorality is to know the moral action to cause the moral effect.

Edited April 19, 2006 by Apple

[RamboIII]

To start...

Is Immorality necessary for Morality.

This is what I mean by faith. I am offering another solution-that works- to achieve any type of success, particularly moral success.

Therefore immorality is not necessary for morality.

Yet, I shall continue with another way to achieve moral success: Through fictional characters. Find a book and learn from it. Many, many people follow this strategy. Well, why else would we have an English class for young students through college?

Take a character from a book, any book- good, advanced book, I might add. He or she...or it... will face conflict and, depending whether that character uses immorality or morality to achieve moral success, you can learn what to or not to do.

Read several books, dig out the issues, and you will learn life lessons.

I can agree with your point of the racist act- it could have spread moral teachings but, assuming this is a case similar to most other crimes, the convicts themselves did not learn anything. Therefore, in this case, immorality resulted in morality and immorality.

[Apple]

This is what I mean by faith. I am offering another solution-that works- to achieve any type of success, particularly moral success.

Faith does not nessecarily equal moral success. One can have faith in thier own system of morality without that system being in compliance with, as you say, the average moral lifestyle. Faith does not mean success, niether does morality. If your life goal is to lead a moral life, than yes, but it does not promise happiness or wealth or even well-being.

A good example of this would be the 9/11 attacks. The attackers claimed to be acting in compliance with thier own system of faith. They had faith in their own believed goodness and that what they were planning to do was completely moral....but does that make it so? And to further my theory, this immoral act had the effect of putting into motion another immoral act on the side of the victims who believed also that their intentions were moral...in both cases an immoral act was believed to be moral, when, in the average system of morality, both actions were immoral. The immorality created by the United States was done so with the belief that it was moral because the intended outcome was to stop terroists, a stand of morality against immotality. Immorality used, on both sides, to create the desired effect believed to be moral simply because it strokes the ego.

Therefore immorality is not necessary for morality.

Therefore, immorality is necessary for morality.

Yet, I shall continue with another way to achieve moral success: Through fictional characters. Find a book and learn from it. Many, many people follow this strategy. Well, why else would we have an English class for young students through college?

Take a character from a book, any book- good, advanced book, I might add. He or she...or it... will face conflict and, depending whether that character uses immorality or morality to achieve moral success, you can learn what to or not to do.

While books teach use the difference between the average moral lifestyle and the average immoral lifestyle, books tend to be very black and white, it is always good vs. evil. We live in the real world, and things are not always black and white. Books can only show us what is moral and immoral in a way that pleases thoes teaching the system of morality they believe to be moral, they do not give sympathy to the other side.

All moral acts are immoral in one way or another. To learn what is immoral or moral, one must first act immorally and see the immoral effect, which will then lead to the moral effect of not commiting the act again.

Read several books, dig out the issues, and you will learn life lessons.

I agree that people do not read as many books as they should, but the quote a book I am reading at the moment :

In answer to a question asked by the interveiwer in Anne Rice's Interviwe with the Vampire, Louie, the vampire with a consious, comments on his decesion not to drink the blood of people:

"What about the cliche' about the artisit who leaves his wife and children to paint? Or Nero playing the harp while rome burned?" Said the boy.

"Both descions were moral. Both served a higher good, in the mind of the artist. The conflict lies between the morals of the artist and the morals of society, not between aesthetics and morality."

I can agree with your point of the racist act- it could have spread moral teachings but, assuming this is a case similar to most other crimes, the convicts themselves did not learn anything. Therefore, in this case, immorality resulted in morality and immorality.

What of books, do they not only spread teachings? In this case one can argue that the convicts saw their opponets as learning nothing. These convicts believes it should be their right to do as they please, they believe their actions to be moral, we believe them to be immoral, and theirs the confusion. Within the idea that we all have different ideas of what is moral and immoral, all immorality results in morality, and all morality results in immorality. Niether can exsist without the other. You must have immorality for morality.

[RamboIII]

While books teach use the difference between the average moral lifestyle and the average immoral lifestyle, books tend to be very black and white, it is always good vs. evil.

They tend to be black and white, yet those are not the only books out there. That, therefore, is still valid. Literature is made strictly to teach morals.

Faith is a way to achieve ANY type of success- again, including moral success. Having faith in your religion alone will teach your how to live a moral lifestyle, therefore using faith to achieve a moral outcome. Also, having faith in humanity, the love for equality, will teach people how to live a moral life. Many people have already lived with these examples of faith- Ex. the pope. He loved Catholalism, he cherished his faith in God and lived and died a moral man. \

Then there are volunteers. Only certain volunteers, however, devote their lives to things such as Charity, School-work, etc. and they do nothing wrong but are morally benefitting the world.

Some of those who are homeless do not seek crime to have happiness, but morality. How do they achieve this? Morality. In this case, things are not built off of materialistic things but love. Love, in all fairness, is moral, and having love in eachother- that being the tool to carrying on- is how they live in happiness and morality.

Now, I believe it is clear to say that morality does not require immorality.

[Apple]

They tend to be black and white, yet those are not the only books out there. That, therefore, is still valid. Literature is made strictly to teach morals.

You talk of books teaching moral values, yet while the differences between moral and immoral can be universal and seperated at the same time, the point of morality itself is to teach values that help people live together in peace. In a world of only morality and immorality the two ARE black and white, they are GOOD and EVIL, but in the real world morality is highly complex, with different levels of rightousness that benefit the benefactor in the situation. Either side can be justly moral or immoral as seen by one or the other. It's true that not all books are black and white, but the books that DO teach moral values HAVE to be black and white. You must have an immorality to explain a morality.

Faith is a way to achieve ANY type of success- again, including moral success. Having faith in your religion alone will teach your how to live a moral lifestyle, therefore using faith to achieve a moral outcome. Also, having faith in humanity, the love for equality, will teach people how to live a moral life. Many people have already lived with these examples of faith- Ex. the pope. He loved Catholalism, he cherished his faith in God and lived and died a moral man.

This is a very weak argument. First of all, religion is not nessecarily moral, second, having faith in humanity dosen't promise morality in any sort, there are factors of humanity, many factors of ourselves that one can argue are seriously immoral, and thirdly...and this is common sense, have you...the pope's love for his religion (*Catholalism) DOES NOT, I repeat DOES NOT make the pope himself moral. Not even the position in which he stands can be a valid example of morality. Faith and morality have nothing to do with each other besides the teaching of what THAT religion deems as moral or immoral in it's own right. And to tie my arugments together, while one person may see their religion as rightous and moral, an onlooker may noy agree, and there is your opposition. Morality cannot exsists with immorality. Religion cannot teach morality without knowing immorality, one cannot exsist without the other.

Then there are volunteers. Only certain volunteers, however, devote their lives to things such as Charity, School-work, etc. and they do nothing wrong but are morally benefitting the world.

And you can say that? You know they do nothing wrong? Moral acts are just that, ACTS. Actions performed by somebody with the idea that they are doing something selfless, and this is good, this IS Good and moral, I agree, but that does not make these people moral. It only gives the idea that they are, not that they are, because away from the world, away from the reportors, the onlookers, thoes who they are helping, we have no idea who these people are or what they do in the privacy of their homes. How would this morality exsist if thier were not immoralities to be fixed by these (supposedly)"all moral people"?

Some of those who are homeless do not seek crime to have happiness, but morality. How do they achieve this? Morality. In this case, things are not built off of materialistic things but love. Love, in all fairness, is moral, and having love in eachother- that being the tool to carrying on- is how they live in happiness and morality.

No offense, but, I've been homeless, and no act of morality ever gave me the sense of happiness. Love does not promise happiness, and niether does morality, and I'm not even going to comment on this one because the entire paragraph has nothing to do with whether immorality is nessecary for morality.

Now, I believe it is clear to say that morality does not require immorality.

And now, I believe it is clear, that morality not only requires immorality, but cannot exsist without it. There would not even be no sense of morality wthout the immorality to preceed it, do you not understand that there is a balance in life and this balance cannot exsist if only one side of this blalance exsisted.

Edited April 25, 2006 by Apple

[AztecInca]

RamboIII we are awaiting your reply!

[RamboIII]

Hmmmm I already responded...Oh well, something probably messed up on my computer-Sorry for the delay....

You talk of books teaching moral values, yet while the differences between moral and immoral can be universal and separated at the same time, the point of morality itself is to teach values that help people live together in peace. In a world of only morality and immorality the two ARE black and white, they are GOOD and EVIL, but in the real world morality is highly complex, with different levels of righteousness that benefit the benefactor in the situation. Either side can be justly moral or immoral as seen by one or the other. It's true that not all books are black and white, but the books that DO teach moral values HAVE to be black and white. You must have an immorality to explain a morality.

I will explain... My example shall be the book, The Alchemist... The black may be thieves and a fierce army, but that is irrelevant towards the entire point of the book. That is the point in English class. Many people may interpret books like you, black and white, but- as I've been through countless English classes through graduate school- have noticed that the true point in literature is the deep morals. In this particular book, Santiago, a shepherd, finds love, wealth, and morality through listening to his heart. In certain events he contacts the wind and the Soul of the World, but that is all metaphoric. Therefore, he uses faith in himself and the guidance of others' wisdom to seek morality.

This is a very weak argument. First of all, religion is not nessecarily moral, second, having faith in humanity doesn't promise morality in any sort, there are factors of humanity, many factors of ourselves that one can argue are seriously immoral, and thirdly...and this is common sense, have you...the pope's love for his religion (*Catholalism) DOES NOT, I repeat DOES NOT make the pope himself moral. Not even the position in which he stands can be a valid example of morality. Faith and morality have nothing to do with each other besides the teaching of what THAT religion deems as moral or immoral in it's own right. And to tie my arguments together, while one person may see their religion as righteous and moral, an onlooker may noy agree, and there is your opposition. Morality cannot exsists with immorality. Religion cannot teach morality without knowing immorality, one cannot exsist without the other.

Using immoral acts- not necessarily even true events- of the Bible and other religous scripts, can teach people how not to do things. Then the moral of the story, that is easily interpreted by the reader, can be followed to find out how to do things. If you want to follow something more precise, look no further than the teachings of Ancient Greek philosophers- They have all the answers for a moral lifestyle.

As you can see, much of achieving morality can be learned from literature and the science of human nature.

By the way, saying that the pope is NOT moral has to be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard.

No offense, but, I've been homeless, and no act of morality ever gave me the sense of happiness. Love does not promise happiness, and neither does morality, and I'm not even going to comment on this one because the entire paragraph has nothing to do with whether immorality is nessecary for morality.

Sure, homeless with internet access. Anyway, incase it is the truth, I'd just like to say that just because it goes that way for you, does not it is the same for all other homeless. Thus my point still stands:

Love, in all fairness, is moral, and having love in eachother- that being the tool to carrying on- is how they live in happiness and morality.

It is the little things in life that matter, whether it be love between family members, or reading simple texts to learn from. But when one commits an act of immorality, those little things become unimportant, and one's focus is mainly on only that act he committed, not the morality he committed. This may be difficult to comprehend but, if an act takes immorality with a moral outcome, to the person who committed such an act, you may as well say it is, infact an immoral outcome. I will explain if necessary.

[AztecInca]

Apple the 7-day time-limit for you to post has passed. If you are unable to post please let either myself or tiddlyjen know otherwise point deductions will have to be made.

[AztecInca]

Apple the 2 week time-limit for posting has passed. I am afraid that I will have to disqualify you. Rambo III wins by default.