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A look at the life and times of Reid Young.

Oct
15
2010
Relative Morality
Posted in Poker | View Comments (20)
 

Hey what's up guys? I hope you're well.

I wanted to swtich things up a bit in this blog post and give you guys some real life content, something that has absolutely nothing to do with poker (spoiler alert).

I had an idea somewhat recently about absolute morality and how I think it can't be true. Basically the poker equivalent of always calling with AA preflop... it seems good in principal, but when you really do the math, it sucks. So if you're a Devine Command Theorist, Kantian follower, or other school of absolute morality, I welcome your input in my comments section, but I probably won't agree with it.

I was reading this book I got a while back on the subject of Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and thinking about applying those physical concepts to a moral choice in a temporal setting. So say it's wrong to perform action A when a certain light is green, but when the same light is red (when God says to, <insert absolute source of morality>, etc) action A is either morally permissable or a moral imperative.

Back to relativity, essentially, for you guys who aren't familiar with the concept, because of the constant speed of light, there is an altered perception of the time/space continuum when you're at differing distances from an object (a different reference point) than another perceiver, same with velocity. As velocity and distance change, so does our perception of an object, more accurately, the light being reflected off of the object, because the speed of light remains a constant.

Now, person S(hootaa) and person R(uby) are at two different distances from the above mentioned light the instant it is about to change (it changes in the next smallest possible amount of time, "an instant" or whatever you'd like to call it). If an action is morally wrong when the light is red and morally permissable or morally obligatory when the light is green, then it's simple to see that following the same "absolute" morality, the two different perceivers from their two different reference points are morally obligated to act in two different ways at the same time. As the light reaches the further of the two perceivers, say R, he will act differently than S, who is closer to the light and has already processed it's change from green to red.

See morally obligatory MSpaint below:



What do you guys think? The red line is supposed to be shorter and therefore getting to me sooner than the green gets to Ruby. The green at the end of the red light line is also showing how the ray of light looks just as the light has changed from green to red.

The obvious counter-argument is that the moral choice is dependent on the perception of the particular person, but I'm convinced there has to be something to disprove that idea or make it seem not as worrisome... that's where I'm hoping you guys can help me out some.

So let me know. I think it's some pretty fun food for thought.

Take care guys. Cribs episode is coming soon!

-Reid

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10-15-2010
IcarusJam is offline IcarusJam
IF absolute morality is defined as absolute, then perception of said moral action has little to do with the rightness or wrongness of the action is because the morality is previously absolutely defined. Morality is situationally based, not with if the light is green or red, but to what degree of brightness (wrong or rightness) there is in the light (moral action)
10-15-2010
IcarusJam is offline IcarusJam
i just think your definition of absolute morality is non absolute which causes a huge leak in the argument

p.s. i'm not 100% qualified to discuss, but would like to hear where my leaks are, i'm not sure how in depth i can go :P
10-15-2010
shootaa is offline shootaa
So what if someone believes it's wrong to abort a featus at 2 weeks but after it's wrong. So 2 weeks + an instant makes it wrong. I'm saying what if you have a moral choice based on the light color or the timing of it... not that the light is the morality. I don't think I really defined absolute morality anywhere in the post, I just named the three or so most popular belief systems.
10-15-2010
shootaa is offline shootaa
Also, everyone is qualitied to discuss
10-15-2010
DBRose is offline DBRose
hmm, interesting. If you define an absolute as independent of any perception, then how does any relative perception matter? I think I understand where your argument/query lies a little more after reading your response to Icarus, however your example now implies a relative bias, no?
10-15-2010
lostinthesaus is offline lostinthesaus
pics of the beemer please
10-15-2010
Mr Papagiorgio is offline Mr Papagiorgio
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These perceptions make us humans sentient. A cop kills in the line of duty, a soldier kills in the name of country or god, or an addict kills to get the next fix (who picks which are absolute?)… Other animals act and never question – they kill to protect and eat; and I’ll take a guess that no other shark or wolf in the pack has the capacity to question the action as having a preferable alternative.

Now I guess you could say for example that a person in a cult has been “moved” closer to, or further from a moral quandary than you may be, from the same quandary, due to “mind control / indoctrination. I would say that things like age / experience will also affect your “distance” of change too. This is the stuff (aligning moral compasses) that keeps Psychologists in business.
10-15-2010
IcarusJam is offline IcarusJam
@Mr Papa

Murder in regards to moral absolutes is wrong, and a great evil. However, you can say some degrees of murder are of a higher evil, and some murders of a lesser evil, and if you want to go there, some "murders" CAN be justified in self defense in extreme circumstances (if this falls under the definition of how u want to define murder in your use at all)

Animals do not have the level of consciousness nor free will that man does, and without that, they are not morally culpable because it is impossible to be morally culpable without conscience and without free will.


In your next paragraph you use the example of manipulation in a cult to define what something morally absolute is (i think?), but to me this is an example that is very flimsy... Manipulation is morally wrong to do to someone because you are doing a great injustice to their free will by taking the option of thought, a very personal ability and gift, away from that person, and claiming it as your own, and even making someone commit an evil act, which would obviously amplify the injustice and evil done to the person being manipulated

So combining the two examples, just for fun, would a brain washed person be morally culpable if they murdered someone due to that brainwashing? Who is responsible? How responsible are they? Why?

How do these questions/answers to these questions show or argue against a moral absolute?
10-15-2010
ReneManzano is offline ReneManzano
A moral code is a system of morality (for example, according to a particular philosophy, religion, culture, etc.) and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code. So moral is relative to a group of people, and in that group the code is absolute. In this case R and S share the same moral code (the light). The distance between R and the light Its going to change his perceived morality, but the absolute morality code (the light source) will remain the same ( R will perceive green light, but the light is red, so that R will make moral mistakes in a short period of time).
10-15-2010
Laser Show is offline Laser Show
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While morality may be relative, modern attitudes towards it are pretty much self-referential. In a climate as PC as the current one, it’s basically unacceptable to make any judgements towards anyone’s actions or behavior. If all morality becomes personal, it’s basically a worthless concept. If a community or society can’t recognize what is moral and what is immoral (and our society is increasingly intolerant towards the idea that you can or should), the consequences are probably greater than the benefits of how cool it is to just determine for yourself what is right and wrong.

Human history points pretty clearly to the idea that most of us want some truths about basic notions of right or wrong. Post-modern philosophies reject the idea that anything is universal or true. If truth is personal, then we stop having anything in common with each other, because our beliefs and values are ... personal and singular. If we have nothing in common with each other, there’s no rational reason to follow any codes that support a collective interest. Contemporary Wall Street values are probably the best reflection of this, but there are others.
10-15-2010
bw07507 is offline bw07507
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I consider myself a pretty smart guy, but that just went way over my head.
10-15-2010
shootaa is offline shootaa
What Rene said is the closest to my point. I'm not trying to discuss what an absolute morality is or talk about that with my example. Basically, the only thing you guys need to know about an absolute morality is that there are 'laws' that people who study ethics call imperatives, things that have to be done in order to follow their belief system. I've already set the assumption that both R and S have the same belief system going into this example so that the only variable is the light color.

Self-referential morality as it applies to this example would only apply to the perception of the light color, which is exactly my point. Because the two people act in different ways at the same time using the same absolute moral 'code,' does that disprove an absolute morality? Obviously, the example isn't one that comes up in the real world, but that shouldn't matter because an absolute morality should always have a right and wrong answer.

For the AA parrellel, I was thinking about when deep stacked near the end of a satellite and another very deep stack open jams, you have to fold every hand in your range, even AA. I think this is like the folding of aboslute morality's AA, making all moral choices relative.
10-15-2010
Mr Papagiorgio is offline Mr Papagiorgio
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OK after some sleep I was thinking about your question as it relates to poker…SO…I think this helps prove your point. How about this:

Pure game theory will be your absolute that both members agree on.
Now what happens is that any degree of tilt that enters the subjects head creates the “distance traveled” of the correct response and changes the answer that the tilted person acts upon as opposed to the correct game theory response the non-tilted person performs.
Both subjects know what is correct and both believe they are doing the correct task at the moment they are asked to do it, but end up completing different actions.
10-16-2010
shootaa is offline shootaa
Mr P, what you're saying is more like a theory called Utilitarianism, based on ideas by John Stuart Mill. Utilitarians try to make decisions based on the EV of their ethics or how many utils, units of "goodness," that an action is worth. Absolute moralities are completely different because given the same information, two different people would perceive it the same and therefore should act the same; whereas, your example about two players deviating from GTO play are going to adjust based on their interpretation of the value of different plays based bet sizes, timing tells, metagame, etc. explains exactly a Utilitarian ethic system, which is certainly a bit more like a self-referntial system... convnetionally, it isn't though.
10-16-2010
toocrispy is offline toocrispy
everybody should be without morals

/thread
10-16-2010
degenaMATT is offline degenaMATT
humanity is fragile beyond explanation continuously
the human mind has no absolute solution
absolute morality can never exist for these reasons

With a 0% chance of finding a solution how important is the problem? fighting cancer or homelessness seem like much fruitful undertakings then discussing absolute morality
10-16-2010
shootaa is offline shootaa
By that rationale degenaMatt, you should be off in Africa somewhere right? Let me know how that goes? Pure altruism is self-destructive. I'll admire you if you can follow that. Everyone else has to come to terms with some sort of moral system or lack of one.

I never said I believed in one type of morality or the other, I just think that the above example is an interesting case to disprove absolute morality. Most absolute moralities don't come from "humans," but religion. The laws are independent of emotional choices like lust or anger. I wouldn't say there's a 0% of finding a solution, but more like a 100% of not finding the solution (meaning an absolute morality for every situation).
10-17-2010
shootaa is offline shootaa
I think all this example does is show that absolute morality is outside the realm of human perception.
10-26-2010
zentropy is offline zentropy
>> then it's simple to see that following the same "absolute" morality, the two different perceivers from their two different reference points are morally obligated to act in two different ways at the same time.

Although it kind of misses the point of your quandry, when considering effects of relativity, time is not an absolute. So even though from an outside POV, it may appear that there is a discrepancy, but if you look from an individual POV the discrepancy may be resolved, since time (and distance) are specific to each person.

The concept of relative/absolute morality is fairly interesting, and not something that I have thought about much...but I am curious as to why you find perception dependent morality unnerving?
10-27-2010
zentropy is offline zentropy
After more thought, erase that last question. Initially, I was thinking of relative morality as comparing two moral systems, but that is not the case here at all. Given the same code, two people acting by the same code, in a morally "good" way - can have different actions.

I can accept this, with a caveat. Namely, the result of the confusion (bad word but you get what I mean) cannot be bad. If a poor result were the outcome, then it would violate the underlying principle of an absolute moral code. While never defined, it feels like an absolute moral code would be one such that - if everyone followed it, we'd have utopia. or the first matrix (the one that ultimately failed, where everyone was perfect). or mr. roger's neighborhood. whatever. But a bad outcome would mean that the absolute code was not absolute, though possibly incomplete. So in that sense, I think an absolute code exists.

It's difficult to think in these terms, because for us morality is always relative. Our upbringing, religion, circumstances, etc shapes our morality. Which kind of makes it feel as if our individual moral codes are facets of this absolute morality. But I digress.

In any case, food for thought. I will be trying to think of some examples where two people acting by the same code arrive at different decisions. A last wrinkle - and that is the notion of possible absolutism. Would the code only allow for one morally acceptable action? In your example it does - red light/green light, each with one associated action (stop/go). In other scenarios, one can imagine multiple morally "right"actions - would the absolute code specify a "best" option? Are there degrees of rightness? Or does knowing the moral "best" option make that the only option?
 
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