Do you find stupidity immoral?

Irrational behavior / stupidity is not right behavior. It's not good behavior. So therefore it should be immoral, yes? I am well aware this isn't brought up too often, but I do think that it fits within the definition, correct?

I'm just wondering if people agree with me here because I mentioned it to a buddy of mine and he said "most people would disagree with you on that".

 

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We don't? Why do we watch nature shows and feel emotion for the creatures then? We notice when a creature hogs all of the food and we call him bad for doing that. We definitely reflect our own morality on animals even when they don't understand the concept. We call our pets stupid when we do something irrational, etc.

Now wait just a minute and think about this now. I wouldn't call someone who is stupid "profoundly immoral" as is the definition of evil. I would just call them lightly immoral, on par with telling a lie.

I would call someone who simply told a lie evil either!

 

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I like what you wrote Fraggle Rocker. Yet things such as wobbly abberrance, and crime are wrong, is it moral to know this or just right?

 

Interesting question. One can excuse ignorance because of lack of educational opportunities and other extenuating circumstances. Stupidity, however, is somewhat different. Yes, I would call it immoral. Morality requires some commitment to learn the facts of the situation before one can make a judgement, and if you are too stupid to care, then you can't also call yourself a moral person.

 

I sometimes feel bad for stupid people and realize it isn't their problem (or fault) for being overtly stupid.

 

garbonzo, I, personally must side with your "buddy" and believe most thinking people would also.

After all, is it NOT immoral to deign to judge anyone, other than one's self, as irrational/stupid in the first place?!

 

By all means, boldly go where so many have gone before, and point your finger of righteous condemnation!!

 

Some difficulty with the words here. "Irrational", "stupid", "right", "good" and "moral", even when used strictly according to dictionary definition, can't avoid subjective valuation in every particular context.
Irrational is not the same as stupid. The irrational - often disastrous - behaviour of heads of state when they launch hostilities against another nation is not necessarily the result of stupidity, but of fear, hunger, hate, self-defence, power-lust, desperation, ideology, greed, influential interests within the country, coercion from a more powerful ally, or some complex of political, economic and sociological factors.
Stupidity and ignorance are also different: a head of state who starts a war may miscalculate his chances of winning because he can't do the math, or doesn't know the enemy - or he may base a rational decision on incorrect information from sources he trusts.

Roughly the same rule applies to individual choices.
An error of judgment is not immoral: it's intent that makes an act morally right or wrong; outcome that makes it strategically right or wrong.

(The irrational behaviour of the species as a whole throughout its history is the result of too much intelligence, not too little. Big brains are more prone to insanity than little ones, just as complex machines break down more often than simple ones.)

 

We're all stupid in some areas. I'm stupid when it comes to automechanics, brain surgery, and skiing. I think we do ourselves and others a disservice stereotyping people as stupid as it implies they aren't intelligent in some area we may not be unaware of. Even if they are stupid in more areas than the average person is, whose to say they simply don't lack experience and education. Thus stupidity isn't even a trait that a person has so much as merely a state of not being exposed to the proper information and experience.

 

Spidergoat agrees with me. Have you read the thread?

I don't understand what you are trying to say here. Are you saying it is irrational / stupid to judge people? I would say not. As long as these things you are judging them on are based on facts. If I see someone jumping up and down looking at the sky while pouring his blood on the ground asking for the rain gods to bring down rain, why would it be immoral for me to judge him as being irrational?

 

If you read my OP I was talking about the behavior. Like you allude to, I'm not sure anyone can say anyone is a stupid person, really. It's mainly only used as an insult, right? It has no place in logical discussion.

While we are talking about it, yes we all do stupid things. We also all have lied. Lying is considered immoral also. We are immoral creatures.

 

As I said above: "Yes we all do stupid things. We also all have lied. Lying is considered immoral also. We are immoral creatures."

No one is putting down anyone.

 

Of course, of course. It's all subjective. I was not trying to argue objectivity here, I was just trying to connect two words according to their definitions. If you believe someone is doing something stupid (which is subjective), then you should also believe they are doing something immoral.

I believe irrational behavior is the same as stupid behavior. They mean the same thing if you look at the definitions. One says lacking intelligence and the other says lacking logic.

Your analogies fail imo. If a head of state does something irrational, they have also done something stupid. If they do something because of some of the reasons you listed, it could be considered rational. If he/she had no other choice because of coercion, or blackmail for instance, then it might be rational when you know the full facts, even if it seems like at first it was irrational. There's also the subjectivity we talked about. It might be irrational to us, but not to the person. Maybe they are greedy and that is the reason for their stupid actions, but those actions are irrational to US. To THEM, because of greed, it made sense to do that action, therefore making it rational to them. Anyway, I believe stupid actions and irrational actions to be synonyms and can be swapped out and in again within this paragraph.


Stupidity / irrationality and ignorance of course are not the same. We all agree with this.

 

garbonzo, is it moral to judge another person.

garbonzo, can you know, for a fact, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that any action you witness and perceive to be irrational behavior/stupidity/immorality, is actually indeed just that?

If you meet a person that you do not know is Deaf - do you perceive that person as irrational/immoral/stupid when you fail to establish any communicate with them?

I, personally find it immoral to judge anything, let alone another person - without full knowledge of the complete "body of evidence"!!!

 

It's not wrong behavior either. Watching soap operas is surely stupid, but immoral? No.

No. Good/bad is orthogonal to stupid/intelligent. Plenty of morally bad things are intelligent; plenty of morally good things are stupid.

 

If "we are immoral", then how can we make any valid judgments about morality (or anything else for that matter)?

 

judgement
1.
the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions.

We all come to conclusions about people. We all judge others. Why are you making it sound like no one does? We all discriminate. Just...look it up.

I encourage you to visit the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. In it there are two doors, one marked "Prejudiced" and the other "Not Prejudiced," and you are asked to walk through the one that best describes you. The "Not Prejudiced" door is permanently locked.

Since we are all prejudiced in some way, it would follow that judging others is not always irrational and not always immoral. Now there IS prejudices, such as racism, that are irrational, and we ALREADY consider those people who harbor such prejudice immoral!

Why do we hate racists so much? Because their thinking is irrational, that's why! Care to debate this?

 

As I've said, it's all subjective. Morals are subjective, so who knows, maybe you don't think you are an immoral person and maybe you think you are perfect in everything you do? Who am I to argue? I'm just saying that generally, most people believe we all make mistakes, we all do things that are wrong, so we are all immoral. Yet we all judge others as well, and that's subjective too. That's why we have laws after all.

 

That's where you and me disagree. I don't think watching soap operas are stupid, I know people who have went to prestigious colleges that tape every episode of "The Young and the Restless". It's just opinion. I think there are things based on fact and things based on opinion. People who do rain dances, even though there is no proof to show that they work, are just wrong. They are doing things wrong. Do you or don't you agree? That is entirely different than soap operas because that is just entertainment, and if people are entertained by it, then who are you to say it is somehow different than what you enjoy as entertainment?

I believe you aren't really thinking thoroughly on this subject, honestly. You are speaking out of instinct, or being off-handed about this. Why don't you try to give another example that you think is stupid behavior, but not wrong behavior? Something that isn't personal like soap operas.

Now, one thing you have to remember though is that I'm NOT saying "morally bad things aren't intelligent". I'm only saying stupid things are morally bad. It's a one way trip, not a two way.