John F

But most norms aren’t random

Uhhh. Yes. A lot of them are. I mean…come on Simon, in parts of the world they lob off pieces of little children’s genitals. Want a less extreme example? To be presentable in an office in western countries a man has to wear an uncomfortable pointless cloth noose around their neck and in Southern Europe a woman has t…[Read more]

It depends on the reason why they are upset.

I think in most cases, the reason why you are doing something, despite the fact that it upsets people…is more important than why someone gets upset about something. Pointlessly doing something that upsets someone, (whether they get upset for an understandable reason or a completely ridiculous…[Read more]

I’m curious as to which other people could be involved, under different moral systems.  I would have thought it’s a question of simple reality.

Under some deontological systems, depending on how you frame your moral rules, consistency is much more important than “upsetting particular people in a particular situation”. Though again that enti…[Read more]

Who’s going to mind?  That is the crucial question.

It depends very much on the moral system that you are using. And depending on the moral system it can also depend on moral norms. But yeah…of the three sorts of people you are referring to…people picnicking on a seemingly strangers grave could upset all three of those kinds of pe…[Read more]

They would likely get cited for trespassing doing something like that.

I’m not really looking for a legal answer here. There are all sorts of moral issues that are technically not illegal or not excluded by general rules or policies that can still be morally wrong. But in any case, I believe I can work out where you stand on the issue from your answers.

If you’re talking about teenagers acting stupid and drinking beer on a grave versus somebody just bringing a blanket in a basket of food to have some lunch, those are two completely different pictures don’t you think?

Well no. You said there’s ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with it. That’s a fairly categorical response. You then asked why it would be…[Read more]

So yes, you’ve changed too much at this point. With the additional conditions you’ve attached to the question, I don’t really find it an interesting question is all I’m saying.

This is the only way to approach the problem deontologically (and at this point we were discussing only my deontological answer…not my various other answers). In a deont…[Read more]

What would be wrong with having a picnic on somebody’s grave?

Ivy, imagine the worst happened and say, your son passed away (sorry to make you imagine the unimaginable). And then you go to visit the grave and you see a bunch of high school students and one of their pet dogs having a picnic on top of his little grave, eating sandwiches and d…[Read more]

Gravesites are real property

Yes totally. For some moral systems, the fact that the grave is private property is enough of a reason to brand the activity immoral.

I think you’ve now added enough new values to the scenario that this has substantially strayed from the original question.

No I don’t agree. How you approach any problem in deontological ethics is contingent on the laws you’ve formulated and how you apply them. I don’t see the value in formulating a law over “is it wrong to have a picnic on a s…[Read more]

Different norms (benefit/harm; respecting the dead; etc.) can clash or have different goals or structures.

This is certainly the case but I don’t think this would invalidate the rule. I mean, if suddenly a large number of people started getting upset if I used the words “marble, pickle and mirror” in the same sentence…I wouldn’t go out of my way…[Read more]

I think the possibility of hurting or upsetting other people is significant enough to make an easily avoidable pointless activity one I wouldn’t do. If there are 1,000,000 equally good places to picnic and I instead choose 1 location where my activity could potentially hurt/upset a person, with no added value to doing it there…I think it’s a…[Read more]

I would agree with you Kristina. But this is a deontological moral law. So it is always relative to the person to frames the law (even if they will that others also follow that law). In that sense, if you do have a good reason to challenge it then the law wouldn’t follow. Since I cannot for the life of me think of a reason why having a picnic on…[Read more]

I understand the resistance to saying: yes it is immoral or no it is not. Because it is a difficult one to defend (not because it is necessarily relative). It seems  the general answer here is: it is in bad taste.

However I do believe it is immoral in some moral systems. Deontological, utilitarian or virtue ethics to name just three (though it…[Read more]