The Oracle Chapter 4 (Anthropos)
Morality
(Ethikoitita)
1. The Oracle defines morality, as the clear distinction of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished, as just and those that are unjust, in accordance to beliefs and conduct.
2. Men and women of the paragon of aretaic value and righteousness are not the sole proprietors of morality, for morality is not exclusively for those that judge and act in accordance to a divine agent or a human agent, but for those that judge and act justly.
3. "Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it," declared Aristotle. We should not seek excellence in the manner of perfection, but in the manner of reason.
4. Socrates said, "A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true." Ergo, what must be construed from those words is the notion that morality is unfounded, if there is no conviction of reasoning and ethics to be applied that could be adhered to its prime fundamentals.
5. Plato said, "Pursuing of one's actual self-interest never conflicts with the demands of morality." For Plato, it is more rational to pursue one's real purpose, than one's apparent, self-interest, rationality and morality that do not conflict. It is rational to be moral. What we learn from that asseveration is the fact that we cannot deem things irrational, if we do not hold true to the necessity for ratiocination.
6. Aristotle had described moral virtue, as a disposition to comport in the right manner, and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are actual vices. We learn moral virtue primarily, through habit and practice, rather than through reasoning and instruction. This teaches us that our assuetudes are shaped by our deportment and actions.
7. The issue of morality is a contentious debate, between religion, philosophy. Morality requires the necessary acquisition of a moral agent that possesses a conscious awareness of actions committed. Thus, whatever action a person takes is conditioned to the conscious relevance of that action. To acknowledge that only a god could be the higher authority in morality, would be to nullify our own potential to deem judgement.
8. To posit that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion and instead, with human reason is more reasonable than to posit humans to be religiously moral, simply due to the fact of their creator. Without the conscious mind, the meaning of any morality and its mores are futile.
9. Why do people define morality as strictly in religious terms and believe that non-religious people have no real morality? Is committing an injustice worse than suffering an injustice to a rational atheist, agnostic or theist?
10. Our inductive thoughts and decisions are conditioned to the inherent manner of thinking that we are inculcated with in our lives, such as the normativity of our cultural values and education.
11. When we are outside of this environment and explore with a meticulous observation and contemplation our world, then our morality begins to form into a belief system of concepts, theories, facts that we can base its implementation with reason, not with some blind faith.
12. A person must strive intuitively to understand self-knowledge, self-awareness and self-being. The importance of the nature of our true self is linked to the thinking of the human mind, the volition of the human self, the eudamonia of our well-being and the material dimension of our body.
13. Reducing suffering and enhancing well-being is moral in the philosophical sense that a person is informed, about the distinction between suffering and well-being. Therefore, that person knows what are their meaning and value. This knowledge does not require the necessity of religion.
14. It would only require the elements of cognition and consciousness. There are no definite moral absolutes because morality is subjective. The universe is indifferent to our suffering, and without our consciousness, there is no moral agency to distinguish morality.
15. We are not born with the absoluteness of purity. People can believe that we are born with human innocence, but there are not, because it would apply that they can distinguish right from wrong from their prescribed birth.
16. It is relatively more important to discuss the issues of moral objectivity and subjectivity. In philosophy, there is also a relevance, between moral objectivity that is related to a fixed point of reference and moral absolutism that is a reference to the view that all actions are intrinsically right or wrong.
17. It would be unwise of me to not acknowledge the misconception of morality and the distinction between vice and virtue, within that assertion. It is paramount that we comprehend the value of virtue, because it is multivalent and perceived through the lens of one's beliefs.
18. Virtue is the embodiment of moral excellence and vice is the result of moral fault. Both are predicated on our inherent actions. Morality functions as a guiding principle that could be perceived and considered as objective or subjective, within the intricate dichotomy of human nature and reasoning.
19. If I equated it to a religious concept, then I would have to distinguish and clarify, if our actions are regarded solely, as innate depravity or ascribed morality that are classified as good and evil, without the necessity of human reason or consciousness. To not apply reason would be to falter into a continual oblivescence.
20. To concur with that assumption, I would need to establish the difference of our agathokakological traits, predisposition, conduct and the evident effects of an anomie. To reject that inclusion would be to negate the presumptive nature of the presupposition and proposition.
21. The five core beliefs in philosophy are happiness, reason, nature, progress and liberty. Without either of them, our way of being, thinking, perceiving, realising, understanding and living would be irrelevant and incomplete.
22. Supreme intelligence is not necessarily required to understand the concept of morality, because the premise is established, as being the consequence of an indisputable rationality.
23. I would agree that absolute morality is incomparable to the general beliefs of philosophy, because what guides our behavioural actions is the fundamental quintessence of our perceived conscience, not our personal convictions nor religions inter alia.
24. As a follower of a philosophy that is the knowledge deduced with human rationality, gods are only discernible as a matter of principle, not of physical transparency. To acknowledge that gods are transpicuous in nature would be to assert that gods are omnipresent and existential beyond faith.
25. I would ultimately conclude in the assertion of my scepticism that any certainty about anything is indubitably impossible, because no one can never know the actual existence of a god, without absolute apodicticity.
26. Thus, I am left with either the concept of logical positivism that asserts that the only statements verifiable through direct observation or logical evidence are meaningful or philosophemes of metaphysical relevance.
27. To be intuitively moral is to be conscious of the certain relativity that is inferred, beyond a transcendental perception or validity. Morality does not need the prerequisite of a god, but the need for an engaging consciousness. We do not need a god to endow us with a verticordious grace, when we have the wisdom of philosophy.
28. Am I less moral, because I choose to not worship a god, or is that god more immoral for rejecting me? What benefit is a creed that has no affinity with the knowledge that we posses, if that solemn creed is not universal in its function?
29. The moral compass in philosophy is predetermined, in the consistency of logic and ethics that take precedence, over the instructed belief of sin and righteousness that predominate in religion. The abstention of sin does not make us morally imperdible. What makes us morally just is our actions and deeds. If we do not possess self-control, then we are susceptible to immoral acts.
30. The impression that we are judged as sinners or saints in our acts is nothing more than an unavailing effort to impose guilt and opprobrium, as a justifiable reason to cleanse the self and body from wickedness, and incapacitate our will. Pudicity in the philosophy of the Oracle is not conducive to its teachings. The Oracles teaches us that the purity of the body is meant in the healthiness of the body, not its presumed sensual immorality, in regard to a sinful nature.
31. In philosophy we are taught that good and bad are natural characteristics of our dispositions, and subsequently, good or bad is not defined by our shame and guilt, instead, by our deeds committed that represent our inner self knowingly.
32. It is the time to realise the unique difference and function of moral judgement and moral decadence. Moral judgement is attributed to a decision or action, while moral decadence is accredited to a lack of conscious thought or indifference.
33. Nothing of morality is a product of religious sin and ignoscency. Instead, it is an ethical value espoused through rational sense. Therefore, its function is to not deter us by condemnation, but to guide us by the continuity of a logical structure of ethics.
34. The Oracle embodies the elements of morality and inculcates precisely, with the intention of edifying the mind to reach a certain enlightenment that brings us knowledge and wisdom.
35. What we search for in morality is the quest for the essence of good. This good defines our character or traits. With it, we are capable of ascribing to the general practice of morality.
36. Whether are answers to our questions are peirastic or simply pysmatic, they assist us in the process of the determination of what we value and what we deem moral from immoral with our judgement.
37. To be moralistic or not in the religious sense is not a concept to be adhered to in philosophy. No individual should consider others immoral, based on the false analogy of their beliefs. We could interpret morality based on our conviction or eusebiac nature.
38. What makes us moral or immoral, is what we conceive just and not perceive unjust. When we act with moral judgement we are exemplifying our character, but this alone does not make us morally superior.
39. Every man or woman that professes to a singular belief, whether it be religious or philosophical, must find meaning to that belief, or else it is rendered meaningless and unfulfillable.
40. What one believes in, demonstrates the true conviction that is espoused, but it does not signify that this belief is just in its nature. For a belief to be just, it must be just to all.
41. If we contemplate the idea of morality in a general sense, then what could be argued or posited is a foundation for a belief. What we desire to know, at times, is not necessarily what we need to do. Every action that is committed with our thoughts, allow us to then ponder the right from wrong of that action. This is when morality is impartial than partial.
42. Without knowledge, there is no wisdom, and without morality, there is no immorality. With morality and immorality, one serves the purpose of a just cause, while the other denies that cause.
43. We often attempt to play the supreme being of a god with our moral sense of judgement, and what we commonly find is that no man or woman is wise enough to learn from the distinction from moral and immoral, without a bias opinion or action.
44. We tend to sit from our palatial throne of judgement and deem what is immoral and moral, without the realisation that we ourselves are casting aspersion unto ourselves, with the display of our lack of reasoning.
45. This is further accentuated in the manner in which we speak and conduct ourselves, with self-righteousness and pretension. Vanity will only disrobe and corrupt one's intentions and true identity. It is facile to be influenced by things that are adscititious than adventitious.
46. Every whole-minded person must be accountable for his or her actions in life. Everyone is capable of the common traits of good and bad. It is, we the people that define their relevant signification.
47. The belief that our gender, our race, our nationality, our religion, our status, makes us morally superior to others is to confirm a complexity of inferiority from the beginning.
48. Within the commonality of beliefs there are countless things that people believe with absolute morality and conviction. However, the world does not revolve around the self-existence of any belief. It merely exists and nothing more. The world is the reflection of self-evidence that is discovered by self-awareness.
49. Decency is relative to modesty and modesty is relative to conduct. Without either decency or modesty, our conduct is rendered ineffective and indifferent. Thus, morality determines our modesty and conduct.
50. The issue of morality is not a concept of religion. In essence, it is founded originally on the philosophic morality of ethics. Ethics is didactic and exponible in its praxis and teachings. Simply, it does not require the inclusion of religion, instead the synteresis of the sophrosyne.
51. The best reward that someone could receive is the acknowledgement of the humanity of someone's virtue. It is important that we learn to distinguish what is healthy ambition from avid ambition.
52. Absolute morality is incomparable to the beliefs of philosophy, because what guides our behaviour is the fundamental essence of our conscience, not our personal convictions nor religions. A belief is not the same as faith, because faith is mere devotion inspired and belief is a conscious thought embedded in our mind.
53. Propriety is a natural trait that could be considered a form of consuetude, because our actions are dependent on our behaviour and habits. Character is not based solely on integrity, but the evident accountability of judgement and action. "Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things," declared Epictetus.
54. The word reputation is such a whimsical notion to attribute to someone. To base a person's description of identity is better to defined it as human character. It is human character that helps build our morality.
55. I cannot acknowledge any ethical or moral principle for capitalism. There is no rational person that could justify any quantified profit or greed in an ethical or moral sense? A person cannot rationalise that argument with a rebuttal, because the rebuttal would be irrational from the premise.
56. I have never understood the purpose of immoral condemnation, because the majority that accuse are unjust zealots that are more immoral than the accused. I am convinced that there is more about us that unite us than divide us in our empathy and beliefs.
57. Do not presume to know everything, when it is better to assume that knowledge is so far only that which is presently known. Thus, it is one's knowledge that will assist one in the understanding of just morality.
58. The common characteristics that I attribute to philosophy are intertwined with the discernible traits that are reflected, within the quotidian human behaviour that is associated to ethics and utilitarianism.
59. Our deeds are determined by the awareness of our actions predisposed, to the preconception of our erroneous conduct that causes our wrongdoings and indiscretions in the first place. The religious concept of sin is dismissed in the Oracle. It is a non sequitur, since philosophy addresses the moral issue of self-control, not sinful discretions.
60. The moral compass in philosophy is predetermined in the consistency of logic and ethics that takes precedence, over the instructed belief of sin and righteousness that predominate in religion.
61. No concept or belief can be fully understood as moral or immoral even with abderitism, if there is not a logical premise to base a foundation of thought that provides rationality to complex questions about human mores and are didactic. Conscience is knowing right from wrong, but consciousness is being aware of the distinction.
62. Conscience is a powerful mechanism that enhances our ethos tremendously. It also makes us mindful of the situations and ordeals that we must confront, despite their unpredictable circumstances.
63. It recompenses the incidence of the errors and foibles that we admit as our defects. It projects the lucid understanding of what is right from wrong, what is logical or illogical in our actions and thoughts of premeditation or afterthought.
64. The purpose of morality is to serve our better judgement and telic conceptions wisely, not the blatant misconceptions of what we ascribe to moral or immoral arguments that are deduced or adduced.
65. If we cannot intrinsically deem a thing or a person immoral or moral, then it is best that we refrain from our judgement and seek wisdom with ascertaining more knowledge that can be discovered.
66. What makes us moral agents is the capacity for us to comprehend the distinction, between what is just from unjust, humane than inhumane. This is personified by the element of prohairesis.
67. We cannot function as moral agents, if we are depraved of any semblance of rational thinking. This burden will become a problem to nomological concepts of morality that lead to a clear misunderstanding.
68. There is such a thing as immorality, but it is not a question of the condemnation of a false morality, but the absence of reason and logic. Without reason and logic, the quiddity of morality is devoid of any true substance and affirmation of the truth.
69. We could attempt to expound with synomilies or homilies what morality represents, and aligned them with nomothetic verities, expecting them to be congruent and compatible, but morality in not meant to be fidimplicitary.
70. The Oracle provides us a philosophy that embraces the concept of morality, with logos and ethos. It cannot be less or more than that of which guides us in our path, for moral clarity and prudence.
71. When we seek morality outside of the philosophic realm, we tend to believe that we are sophronised by a higher authority that is a god, yet optimality is neither effectuated, or is the enlightenment of the seity that one possesses.
72. It only deviates our chosen path in life. When as humans, we depend lesser on deities for the guidance of morality and more in our own will and capacity, then we find that we are capable of reaching a just morality.
73. This is where we discover such things within our endoxas and physis as the synesis, the synderesis and the syneidesis. One deals with the faculty of good judgement, another with moral action, and the final one, with the capacity of moral judgement. These things enhance our wise learning.
74. There are adiaphorons, where an individual attempts to be neutral, but neutrality with morality is only a compromise, not a definite answer. Thus, it is better to not judge something of which you are not convinced of its totality and implication.
75. To be moral is not the same is to be righteous, as to be immoral is not that same as to be depraved. In the teachings of the Oracle, the difference is understood in the relevancy and meaning of what it means to be moral and immoral. There is a difference from being altitudinarian or latitudinarian. We must apply equilibrium, not casuistry.
76. The Oracle ascribes to the thought that there is a purity within us that is our consciousness of which guides us or misleads us. This, is how we determine what or who is moral from immoral. We choose to be moral or immoral willingly or unwillingly, with our actions and judgements.
77. The inner self that defines our character or persona is only the mechanism to our cognisance. When we apply cognition and sentience to things that are existential in our world, then we ascertain the realisation of those actions and judgements.
78. Every thing that we deem moral, has an opposite that is the contradiction to that morality. Ergo, there is a certain truth to that statement. The conundrum is not what is determined to be moral, but why is it determined to be immoral? On what foundation is this immorality based on, if it does not pertain to the purity of the truth?
79. If we deem that the self or soul is impure with immorality, then we must as well, deem that the body is immoral also. If both are impure in thought and action, then we must prove and concede that our rationality is impure.
80. As conscious agents of morality, we ascribe to the practice of virtues and respect. We must accede to the thought that we become wiser with knowledge and understand more the conceptualisation of morality.
81. People can believe in numerous things that are assumed to be immoral or moral in their nature. They can believe in justices or injustices. What makes us see the veracity of something is not the guise of immorality, instead the veracity of that morality.
82. We are inclined to believe in things that imbue our conviction or define our faith. Faith is a blind man's conviction. It is not the moral compass for morality. It is only the precursor to the errant nature of an ulterior ego.
83. The greatest achievement of morality is being sapient and devout to the cause of which it serves and the purpose for which it is demonstrated. If we enable zealots to impose their morality, then we are enabling morality to be flawed and unjust in its judgement.
84. To know our imperfections and flaws is to be morally just and not compromised. It is when we are truly mindful of these things that we are emerged deeply, with our consciousness and reality.
85. We have the ability to enhance our vision of morality, with wisdom and knowledge. It is vital to our induction that we heed to the ampliative teachings of philosophy. Once we have ascertained understanding, then we culminate the process of philosophic fulfilment.
86. To acknowledge rectitude based and inferred from righteousness is only a presumption of a truth. It does not mean that it is the truth. By making the assumption that it is the truth, one is pretermitting the truth.
87. I can choose to be moral or immoral. We are not born with either trait, but I have a mind that distinguishes what is moral and immoral. It is when we decide to act on either of the two that we are confronted with the invariable consequence of that act.
88. How we treat others largely depends on how others treat us. How we judge others depends on how we are judged. It is from the teachings of philosophy that we learn to depend not on others, but to depend on ourselves.
89. To conceal what we think, what we feel is to assume that we are less moral. To express what we think, what we feel is to presume that we are more moral. Life does not make people indescerptible, people do.
90. The Oracle bestows upon us, a knowledge that we did not have, a wisdom that we could not utilise. It is not the perception of morality that we must be mindful. It is the mind that we must heed to its emerging consciousness.
91. When we discover our goodness, then we are able to confront our evil. To make the assumption or claim that we do not have evil in us is to falsely discard foolishly our mortal humanity.
92. A person can choose to be good or evil, or a person can believe that good and evil are truly a tangible reflection of ourselves. The plenteous things that we do in life are consequently, a reflection of our good or bad characteristics or actions displayed.
93. Evil and good are embodied by our deeds and by our actions. Philosophy teaches us that we are not born evil or good, but we instead intuitively or instinctively learn to be good or evil.
94. This does not preclude that we cannot become either good then evil or evil then good. It simply, denotes the feasibility of such alteration occurring in our idiosyncrasy and mind.
95. A human being can be taught to be evil or good in life, yet it is the immediate action of that human being that will ultimately determine the sequential consequence of that action taken.
96. There are times, when we think or believe that we are doing good for the benefit of others, when we are knowingly and willingly committing a wrong act, and we justify that action, with a good intention proposed.
97. Morality is not meant to be entirely complex. It is we humans that make it seem more complex in nature and in essence. This is interpreted by our uncertainties. Our intellectual exploration has no true boundaries, except the ones imposed by our minds and lack of acceptance of its moral nature.
98. What we learn in our lives, we must apply equally with morality. If we have not learnt the difficult lessons of life, then how can we expect to learn the inspirational lessons of morality?
99. The question that is seldom answer but often enquired is what purpose does our morality serve, when it is overtly restricted or limited in its expression? "Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts," said Aristotle.
100. Can we express our morality, without the actual liberty of our uninhibited volition exposed? Thus, what good is the concept of morality, if we do not have the sole capacity for free will?
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