Every "duty" comes with boundaries. You have no duty to do that which you cannot do or which will result in an equivalent harm to yourself.
You can't have a duty to donate the only kidney you have.
If you donate "ALL your $$" to help the poor, you just add yourself to "the poor".
Procreation does NOT "create happy lives"; that requires GOOD PARENTING. Not everyone can procreate, not all of them can be good parents. Guilting (bullying) people into parenthood destroys happy lives.
I'm the sort of scalar consequentialist who doesn't merely think moral obligations are something we don't have, but rather doesn't find it to be a coherent concept. The best I can do is to translate "we're obligated to have more happy kids" into "having more happy kids plus being coerced by some authority into doing so would still improve the world", the negation of which obviously doesn't imply the negation of "having more happy kids without the coercion would improve the world".
In this context, "obligated" does not seem to be about coercion as far as I can tell. Rather, 'A is obligated to X' seems to be equivalent to 'it would be immoral for A not to X' (or 'unethical', or 'morally wrong', and so on).
I understand. But to my mind what you've done here is give three synonymous expressions that form a big circle unconnected to anything else. What I was doing above is an attempt to connect these words to something more tangible. Otherwise, I don't even understand what they mean, other than that subset of good actions which some people tend to write about in all caps.
I see; I don't want to get too far on a tangent, but briefly I would say that:
Words like 'immoral', 'morally wrong', etc., are ordinary moral terms, used in everyday speech without any problems. Here, as far as I can tell you are implicitly positing a partial moral error theory, since you seem to question the meaningfulness of several such terms - unless you are suggesting that it's difficult for you personally to understand them, even if people generally understand them just fine, but that does not seem to be what you are saying -, though you do not question others - like 'good actions' - (hence, the error theory is partial).
I haven't seen good evidence in support of moral error theories, but I'm willing to read the arguments if you have a link.
That aside, I don't think there is a definition of 'morally wrong', or 'immoral' or 'unethical', in terms of other, simpler terms - i.e., without using synonyms -, but the same can be said about terms like 'good', say in the sense in which it is used in the expression 'good actions' - that you do understand -, many other words.
I would have to go with an ostensive definition: i.e., I list unethical and non-unethical behaviors, and someone not familiar with those terms will pick up the meaning. For example, under ordinary circumstances, it is not unethical to eat a banana or an apple because one feels like it. It is unethical to punch a person in the face because one does not like her face. And so on; it is easy to find zillions of paradigmatic examples where generally there is no disagreement (error theories aside), and you should be able to grasp the meaning of the terms from the examples with no difficulty. In fact, nearly all of the words humans use are learned in that manner - outside technical jargon, in different specialized domains -: for example, when you learned the meaning of words from 'cat', 'dog' or 'car' to 'ill' or 'good', you almost certainly never saw a definition in terms of other words (I reckon you're a native English speaker; else, a slight adjustment might be required on this point) (1).
But I don't want to go too far on a tangent, so I will leave it at that.
(1) While I think cases like 'unethical' or (probably) 'ill' are somewhat different from 'cat' or 'car' in the way we we learn them because humans can instinctively recognize those categories, there is no need to make that point here.
Ostensive definition doesn't work for normative terms; it can't distinguish the normative content of "unethical" from the descriptive category "things conventionally believed to be unethical".
But see 'What Permissibility Could Be' for a couple of ways of making sense of the normative concept:
Perhaps we are using the term "ostensive definition"differently, but otherwise, I would not agree with that (aside for the issue of "normativity", but that is another matter), since the examples are not assumed to be correct - e.g., if I ostensibly define "cat" and one of my examples happened to be an alien exploration robot disguised as a cat, the definition still helps a human person pick up the concept, and the property would be whatever property the English word happens to pick. The robot just happens no to be a cat.
So, if I find a person who does not understand the word "unethical" or any synonyms, a way to explain it to them is as above (and, in fact , that is how we learned it).
I think it's more normal for people to learn normative concepts as part of a social *practice* which involves being subject to praise, blame, etc. Not just pointing at instances in the world and applying a term.
I take the social meaning to start from parents implicitly communicating something like, "We'll regard you negatively if you do this sort of thing," or "We command you not to do this sort of thing," and then we later objectify the concept to instead talk about what would *warrant* blame or prohibition or some such (independently of what contingent attitudes our parents or other social authorities merely happen to have). But then it makes a difference what specific thing we're really talking about: warranted blame is different from warranted prohibition, after all.
Observing common usage, it seems to me that people do not take themselves to be talking about different things - or past each other - when they say - for example - 'wrong' - in the context of moral condemnation -, and seem to understand the word and others well, at least as long as no theory about what they are (based on philosophy, ideology, religion, etc.) is involved. But I'll leave it at that; hopefully, either your link or my explanation might achieve its goal.
By the way, regarding the other post, thank you for the interesting read (I have a different view - not my invention -, though I think it's probably too far apart from either your or any other philosophical theory to discuss here).
What exactly is writing this comment designed to achieve? All it does is hint that you have some devastating criticism in your head, while allowing you to conveniently avoid actually have to state it. I guess if you just want to annoy people you don't like as a goal in itself that works, but it doesn't actually demonstrate some kind of superiority.
Every "duty" comes with boundaries. You have no duty to do that which you cannot do or which will result in an equivalent harm to yourself.
You can't have a duty to donate the only kidney you have.
If you donate "ALL your $$" to help the poor, you just add yourself to "the poor".
Procreation does NOT "create happy lives"; that requires GOOD PARENTING. Not everyone can procreate, not all of them can be good parents. Guilting (bullying) people into parenthood destroys happy lives.
I'm the sort of scalar consequentialist who doesn't merely think moral obligations are something we don't have, but rather doesn't find it to be a coherent concept. The best I can do is to translate "we're obligated to have more happy kids" into "having more happy kids plus being coerced by some authority into doing so would still improve the world", the negation of which obviously doesn't imply the negation of "having more happy kids without the coercion would improve the world".
In this context, "obligated" does not seem to be about coercion as far as I can tell. Rather, 'A is obligated to X' seems to be equivalent to 'it would be immoral for A not to X' (or 'unethical', or 'morally wrong', and so on).
I understand. But to my mind what you've done here is give three synonymous expressions that form a big circle unconnected to anything else. What I was doing above is an attempt to connect these words to something more tangible. Otherwise, I don't even understand what they mean, other than that subset of good actions which some people tend to write about in all caps.
I see; I don't want to get too far on a tangent, but briefly I would say that:
Words like 'immoral', 'morally wrong', etc., are ordinary moral terms, used in everyday speech without any problems. Here, as far as I can tell you are implicitly positing a partial moral error theory, since you seem to question the meaningfulness of several such terms - unless you are suggesting that it's difficult for you personally to understand them, even if people generally understand them just fine, but that does not seem to be what you are saying -, though you do not question others - like 'good actions' - (hence, the error theory is partial).
I haven't seen good evidence in support of moral error theories, but I'm willing to read the arguments if you have a link.
That aside, I don't think there is a definition of 'morally wrong', or 'immoral' or 'unethical', in terms of other, simpler terms - i.e., without using synonyms -, but the same can be said about terms like 'good', say in the sense in which it is used in the expression 'good actions' - that you do understand -, many other words.
I would have to go with an ostensive definition: i.e., I list unethical and non-unethical behaviors, and someone not familiar with those terms will pick up the meaning. For example, under ordinary circumstances, it is not unethical to eat a banana or an apple because one feels like it. It is unethical to punch a person in the face because one does not like her face. And so on; it is easy to find zillions of paradigmatic examples where generally there is no disagreement (error theories aside), and you should be able to grasp the meaning of the terms from the examples with no difficulty. In fact, nearly all of the words humans use are learned in that manner - outside technical jargon, in different specialized domains -: for example, when you learned the meaning of words from 'cat', 'dog' or 'car' to 'ill' or 'good', you almost certainly never saw a definition in terms of other words (I reckon you're a native English speaker; else, a slight adjustment might be required on this point) (1).
But I don't want to go too far on a tangent, so I will leave it at that.
(1) While I think cases like 'unethical' or (probably) 'ill' are somewhat different from 'cat' or 'car' in the way we we learn them because humans can instinctively recognize those categories, there is no need to make that point here.
Ostensive definition doesn't work for normative terms; it can't distinguish the normative content of "unethical" from the descriptive category "things conventionally believed to be unethical".
But see 'What Permissibility Could Be' for a couple of ways of making sense of the normative concept:
https://www.goodthoughts.blog/p/what-permissibility-could-be
(I don't have my computer at hand)
Perhaps we are using the term "ostensive definition"differently, but otherwise, I would not agree with that (aside for the issue of "normativity", but that is another matter), since the examples are not assumed to be correct - e.g., if I ostensibly define "cat" and one of my examples happened to be an alien exploration robot disguised as a cat, the definition still helps a human person pick up the concept, and the property would be whatever property the English word happens to pick. The robot just happens no to be a cat.
So, if I find a person who does not understand the word "unethical" or any synonyms, a way to explain it to them is as above (and, in fact , that is how we learned it).
I think it's more normal for people to learn normative concepts as part of a social *practice* which involves being subject to praise, blame, etc. Not just pointing at instances in the world and applying a term.
I take the social meaning to start from parents implicitly communicating something like, "We'll regard you negatively if you do this sort of thing," or "We command you not to do this sort of thing," and then we later objectify the concept to instead talk about what would *warrant* blame or prohibition or some such (independently of what contingent attitudes our parents or other social authorities merely happen to have). But then it makes a difference what specific thing we're really talking about: warranted blame is different from warranted prohibition, after all.
Observing common usage, it seems to me that people do not take themselves to be talking about different things - or past each other - when they say - for example - 'wrong' - in the context of moral condemnation -, and seem to understand the word and others well, at least as long as no theory about what they are (based on philosophy, ideology, religion, etc.) is involved. But I'll leave it at that; hopefully, either your link or my explanation might achieve its goal.
By the way, regarding the other post, thank you for the interesting read (I have a different view - not my invention -, though I think it's probably too far apart from either your or any other philosophical theory to discuss here).
This is exactly how I imagine discourse to sound like in Analytical philosophy. I don't understand why I keep giving it a chance.
Why bother to write such a vacuously dismissive comment? If you don't want to be here, go somewhere else!
What exactly is writing this comment designed to achieve? All it does is hint that you have some devastating criticism in your head, while allowing you to conveniently avoid actually have to state it. I guess if you just want to annoy people you don't like as a goal in itself that works, but it doesn't actually demonstrate some kind of superiority.