Tractatus Logicomoralitas

The world we live in is filled with plenty of ideologies about moral principles - what is good and what is considered to be bad. The purpose of this text is an attempt to describe morality without the interference of any ideology. I am not sure if that is possible, so it's up to you to decide whether the principles shown here are trustworthy or they are too narrow and shortsighted or based on some ideology.

Morality is complex and not so easy to define, but it is all based on comparison: "this is better", "this is good", "this is bad". We will simply try to define the words we use here, but not based on some book, consensus or one person's thoughts - we use just logics. This morality could be applied not only to humans, but also animals, machines and whatever comes in mind, even God.

Let's start from the very beginning. Humans are all different - they have different color, feelings, height, weight, wealth, health, etc. But these are some local variables which vary from place to place and which can be altered by the actions of the same individual. Generally speaking, humans, as a specie, are all the same. If there are no complications, we all born with the same abilities. The only internal difference we get in life is inside our head, all the other stuff can be gained or taken away (of course you can get some mental disease, but this is not a natural state of mind). This simple idea shows one important thing: we are all the same as a machines, only our software is working differently, so it means, we can compare one person to another based on "performance of their software", i.e. intellect. This is the only property which changes very little throughout life and has no influence from outside world after the early childhood.

This intellect, of course, is not so well defined and we can't make tests to determine it exactly, as one is better at math and the other has a talent in music. But there is one thing which can be said about intellect (from the viewpoint of biology): the purpose of our brain (intellect) is to make a projection of the outside world inside itself. The better a person understands the world, the better he uses his brain. So the difference of all humans is based on "how well do they understand the World?"

Moral principles can be based on this understanding or in other words - intellect. This is possible and not arbitrary and we can surely find the answer to which action is better or worse. If subject A understands all the consequences of his actions and knows all the necessary variables - he is acting good, otherwise - subject B can do better. Morality can be reduced to this level, because this makes it clear and comparable, far more objective. It removes the question that arises every time - "Why is this bad?". Your actions done in the past must be judged by the situation back then, you can't use these moral principles in a backward fashion, because the world changes and more and more information is available. More information means better understanding, i.e. more knowledge about the outside world. Feelings we feel are not important here, because they are not connected to the outside world, they are purely ours, so acting based on our feelings is bad, because they carry no information from outside.

This theory also has some serious flaws:

  • No one, except God (according to his definition), can act totally good, because the laws of physics forbid the deterministic view of the World (remember Schrodinger's cat).
  • It is almost impossible to compare different actions (i.e. what is better - love your neighbor or stop smoking), but these questions are also unanswered by traditional moral systems.

If we compare this theory to present day morality, we can get quite confused:

  • A thief is acting good as long as he is not caught and knows all the consequences his actions will cause (even those of his victims).
  • Some individuals would always act worse than the others, despite their intentions.
  • etc.

Logicomoral man could not exist in this present society and Logicomoralitas can be better understood if we had pure experiment - one man in the universe. For this reason it is a kind of Utopian idea, well, anyway, most of the ideas in the world are of this kind.