This is a term that can be applied to people who believe themselves to be ethically superior to the majority of people. People who feel this way are often Authoritarian in thinking and feel that they must impose laws onto others "for their own good" (when it's often out of fear of their "ethically inferior" counterparts). Look at Vegans who want meat outlawed and claim moral or ethical superiority because they refuse to eat meat. Or people who want to ban smoking in private homes or establishments. Or people who support a ban on guns, but keep a gun for their own home defense. The list goes on and on, endlessly.

There are always people who want to take rights and freedoms away from others, often for their "own good", but it's usually painfully clear that the motivating factors are actually power, control and fear.

I believe it comes down to religion.
They will have their say.
They manage and manipulate millions
of people.
People believe what they are told to
believe.
This is easy when thinking is not
involved.
Were common sense the only religion
there would be no discussion.

And the fact that many atheists also assume ethical superiority, how do you explain that? The constant claim that teaching children religion is child abuse, the claims that all religions lead to theocracies, the claims of being smarter, better educated or more informed that people of religion. Atheists are in the same boat when it comes to claiming to be superior.

(... to get the good ole' ball rolling...)

If I propose to ban guns, and I support the banning of guns, and I even do some community work or fundraising for a "no-gun" lobby, I am not doing it for "them". I am not doing it for the people who are too stupid. Nobody is stupid. I am doing it for ME.

Same with smoking. Those who write laws to curb smoking from the curb and force smokers to move into the sewer (it is being tabled by Toronto Council as we speak), then they do it for themselves. Not for us, unwashed heathen. WE can die, what do they care. But THEY don't want to smell smoke. So they make OTHERS to quit.

What else... meat. Vegans. This is an old political campaign, you are too young to remember the beginning. It started with the Iowa Zombie Treaty of 1874. Human meat was taken off the menu in many a mid-western establishment, much like women were put on the voting block.


The world keep changing. There is a law, not a legal law but a general meta-law, that says that the smart and righteous know what to do and how to do it and when. The technological changes, the moral evolution of society, the political advancements, these all change for the lazy, who are too stupid or too lazy to know how to apply a computer. So they make a computer easier to use. That only makes the stupid even more stupid, so they make an easier computer. Etc.

This is the same with Vegans, with gun laws, with smoking. People who are too stupid to learn how to shoot a gun, or too lazy to kill their dinner, and restrict their diets to those foods that don't run away when you want to pick them up, and those who don't know how to fire a gun or fire a BBQ or smoke meat to make it last longer, they make rules for EVERYBODY.

Shtoopid polittishans.

We're in the same boat? I don't claim to be superior. I think we are all created equal. Some are just have less common sense.

You need to start hanging out with some Atheists that are more down to earth

Well, if you go to the bother of putting together an opinion on some issue, then the chances are that you think that opinion is better than the alternatives. Surely that's just natural?

I don't think it makes me a better PERSON to have my opinions, but I surely do think that my opinions are better than the alternatives.

For instance, I happen not to believe in any sort of a god. This means I'm an atheist. I don't think it means I'm BETTER than you just because you're a Christian. But I certainly do think that my opinion is better than yours.

You could regard that as "ethical superiority" if you like, but I would be deeply suspicious of someone who held a bunch of opinions which even he himself admitted had as much value to him as every other opinion. On everything.

the premise of the argument is flawed in inception, as it based upon the notion that there is no true superiorty or valid contruct of anothers words, as the speaker...

so, the hearer is deeming itself as first superior MOST, in even accessing such as valid or real of another.

so the entire notion is based upon first bias in the hearer of any data.

it then proposed that there be some "disorder" of another that speak...

which is indeed self superiorty in the accuser of another as feeling superior...

lol...

and, in assessing such a "feeling exist" in THEM, the accuser itself be speaking in a authoritarian manner.

deeming it's perception and accusation of another as accurate, so having authority as real and accurate.

white man 1 says to another, "you cannot enslave black people any more"?

other white man says,

"who are you to tell me what i can do"...

"who made you god"

first white man just didn't feel it was good to enslave black people...

but made the mistake of saying you cannot.

lol...

only if he said, I DON'T "WANT" YOU ENSALVE BLACK PEOPLE ANY MORE?

but, even this can be percieved as authoritarian...

as one can see, the argument of "guilt" in such things is unto infinity, or having no true possible conclusivity.

so in actuality, everything and ALL in human existence is simply deemed "good" only by "collective majority agreement"...

vegan's really do feel the pain of animals, and can't stand the thought of them having to die for self to eat, when self can eat many other things to stay alive itself, and when there be much proof provided that a vegan diet be healthier for the human body...

but we don't have to choose the "healthiest way"...

other's could care less...

never even gave it a second thought...

both feelings of both persons are real, is all that matters...

which the accuser of another will never be able to see or know, even though they demand their OWN FEELINGS be as real, and heeded as such, lol...

so, both feelings are real, so the perceptions are real, as the perception is created by the feelings.

neither of course can imagine how the other could feel the way they do, and so both can deem the other as cruel, as controlling, as "feeling superior", as manipulative, authoritarian...

lol...

yea, it's a gerbil wheel to infinity.

but the one most guilty of self superiority, is the one that does not believe the accused, if they say "NO, I DONT FEEL THAT WAY"...

as the ACCUSER has used it's own feelings as SURPEME, to not believe another over itself...

lol...

and we wonder why there is no solution possible unto infinity if two people are both in the 'accusing zone'...

one must have a good enough argument to leverage the other into actually forsaking it's own argument, or backing down...

ONE has to win, for any change, is the only thing that most matters...

the one that believes the most labels and accusations as true about another, will actually in the end turn out to be the one losing it's own agenda, as these labels will cloud the mind to the true logistics needed to actually prosper THE SELF AGENDA.

Spider,

I hadn't even finished the first sentence...



When I thought of some other vegans and 'environmentalists' that I know, who are total pricks; who are so full of themselves they don't even notice that they are pissing people off with their assumption of the 'right' way to do things, for everyone. So I was right there with you regarding authoritarianism, and wasn't the least bit surprised you mentioned vegans. (I'm currently eating a vegan diet).

I'm not so sure about the phrase "for their own good". Those of us who 'assume ethical superiority' are often not concerned with your well being, but the well being of others that are effected by you. The condescending attitude that often goes along with this is similar to that of those who would coerce you 'for your own good', but the basic motives and principles aren't the same.




I'm confident you aren't claiming that vegans generally want meat outlawed, but are specifying a subset of vegans who feel this way.

I have known many hundreds of vegans in my life, and have never met a single one who wanted meat consumption completely outlawed. Many would lean towards outlawing factory farming, but they also realize this can't be legislated into existence without an gradual adaptation to our economy.




We need people like this. During the time of slavery, many abolishionists would have been viewed as 'people assuming ethical superiority' who wanted to impose their ethics onto others, by force. The same would hold for anyone living in an Islamic country that finds some of their laws medieval.

I don't believe that authoritarianism is intrinsic to believing in, practicing, and advocating ethics that are very different from the majority.

And vegans, too. I've known some vegans whom you'd never know were vegan, if you didn't press them for why they won't eat some particular dish. They never talk about it, they never give evidence of judging others, they never suggest what other people should do. These gentler, humbler vegans can easily escape detection.

I've heard this a lot in my life, and I disagree. This line of reasoning is often used, in my experience, by people (not you! i'm just bitching here, tangentially) who are very closedminded, and want to rationalize to themselves that everyone is equally closedminded as they, and that their form of closemindedness is simply natural and appropriate.

A person can be very deeply immersed in an awareness of their own limitations - limitations of knowledge, of experience, of intelligence - and still forms provisional, temporary opinions and live according to them, all while truly and honestly believing that they probably don't have the best opinion, nor that its truly better than the alternatives; only that its the best they have been able to come up with, so far.

I call BS on the whole 'if you have an opinion, you must believe its the best opinion' quasi-logical argument.

I'm not talking about all of any group, just those who seek to impose their own values or beliefs on others because they believe themselves to be morally or ethically superior. The kind of people who don't take a principled stand on the issue, but take a stand that their morality is superior to those who disagree with them.

No, that is a wrong application of the term.

Think about people who want to outlaw guns. Their plan is to take away guns from everyone. Their plan seems to end at the law abiding citizen. How do you find the criminal's guns? If the goal is to take away weapons, what about knives? Bows and arrows? Clubs? The fear is often expressed towards people who legally own or collect guns, as if they are the danger to society, not the criminals. It's an assumed moral superiority (I can own a gun, but not that poor family across town).

Opposition to slavery is based on an actual moral premise (all people are created equal...), banning guns or smoking in homes or private establishments is not. Those sorts of bans are based on a belief in moral superiority. "Smoking is bad for you, so we should ban it". There are many things that are bad for us, where do we draw the line? I believe the founding fathers would have said "Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins". We can't ban an activity without effecting another persons rights. Sometimes positively (Banning pedophilia positively effects children) or negatively (Banning prostitution negatively effects the unattractive, socially awkward and lonely). The best rule of thumb is that if a behavior doesn't negatively effect people by it's mere practice, it shouldn't be legislated against.

I thought you were bringing up two distinct (but sometimes co-mingling) issues:

a) The existence of people who think they know better than others how those others ought to live their lives, and who feel justified in enforcing their preferences on others

and

b) The consequence of having minorities of people whose personal ethics are very different from the majority's.

I think, now, that you are talking about (a) and not (b).

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It seems to me theres some ambiguity in the phrase "believe themselves to be ethically superior" - at first I took it to mean "having different ethics, which they believe are superior" and now I think, maybe, you mean "believing themselves to be subject to different ethical rules, because they think themselves superior". In other words, hypocrites.

----

If we are talking about people banning things for people's own good, because they can't be trusted to made good decisions for themselves - what would this have to do with veganism? Most vegans are motivated primarily by concern for the well being of non-human animals. Those who advocate might remind people of the health risks of excess meat consumption, but they are rarely motivated by their concern for the well being of the humans.

Very few people want animals to suffer, but some vegans think that they care more than non-vegans. Those people believe that their moral clarity allows them to see the abuses that the less moral allow to happen. I would suggest that the fact that vegans have nothing to gain from the butcher would make it so that their concern for the suffering of animals is taken to the nth degree.

At the risk of stating the obvious...

Don't be shy!

Many of the 'morals' which influence behavior are instilled in us through our culturization. The most dominant ethical code of our society become the morals we learn to get along with socially. We learn 'manners' and even if we don't always use them, most people understand what manners are. We learn that killing is wrong that sharing is good and so on.

Some people put their faith in a religious concept and adopt the ethical code specific to that religious belief. That set ethics builds upon what has been instilled.

Some people add to their ethical code, not through religion, but through other expereiences. But like belief in the value of a religious concept, the strongest foundation of any ethical code is belief in the intrinsic value of the concept.

An environmentalist, a vegan, a religious person, or an activist for a specific cause, have all made an emotional investment in a concept they belief to be right.

Our experience and our personalities influence what things we choose to value and in what priority we place that concept.

Activism, proselytizing, making research public, and soliciting for donations are all 'morally' driven activities. But so is choosing to inconspicuously and quietly adopt an ethical position only for one's self.

The difference between the two depends on personality and how highly motivated an individual is to be a vehicle for change.

After that - is it ethics, personality, or a psychological need to be right that drives an individual to act superior or make claims of superiority over others?

Be a vegan because your habit of eating meat is causing animals to be tortured and die in misery and pain. For this you risk disease and death for yourself.

Stop your unnecessary over consumption and creation of waste, and limit the number of children you have because you are destroying the environment that all life depends on. Your habits cause destruction, create horrors of human affliction and humanity will become extinct.

Believe in my God and accept His rules and commandments or you will surely suffer and die.

Anything you can spare, change, your old clothes and household goods or even your time will save others from starvation, suffering and death.

The law no longer works, it has succomb to changes in our social structure and our cultural values, we must change it now because it has become a tool of oppression and its use is harming many.

Which concept or idea is more superior than another? Can there not be something of value in all those concepts?

When we diminish what others value, we fail to see the utility of having such a value. Waving off the values that others hold does not make the issue go away - it only makes those who hold the value fight harder and come back stronger and often they will justify their stance (seemingly with a superior attitude)by attacking the most vulnerable area - what another person values.

Far more so than Vegans or Gun Control advocates are "Morning People" an annoying subset of humanity who believe themselves to be superior to those of us who feel a good morning begins at noon, and awake at 4 am is fine (not as many idiots to deal with at that time of day)

These "morning people" strut around saying stupid things like " the early bird catches the worm" WTF!!!! why would I want to eat a disgusting slimey ground slug? Oh, and if the gym closes too early in the evening for you to make it there, they say sanctimonious things like "just get up an hour earlier nd work out before work...balh blah blah"

Well, they take the cake for superiority complexes

I wonder if these people relly realize how close to death they come when they say that to those of us on an evening bio/clock?

(jk)

He already stated the obvious, we all believe our opinions to be the better choices, at least for ourselves, or we wouldn't have them. To disagree with that is pointless and a waste of time - our time on here. Maybe u should try downloading some games, or join a gym

I totally agree.