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So it's only about survival? Is that it? Why is that the standard? What if another society disagrees? Who is correct?
I feel sorry for you. You have no basis to denounce the Nazis for the holocaust other than your own personal opinion. Thankfully, though, there is such a thing as absolute morality--and it goes deeper than your opinion.
I will keep asking the question until people understand that there is a difference between absolute and relative morality.
Even your God, whom you consider is the source of our "absolute morality" does not conform to his own morality, if what we read in the Bible is correct. How can you claim a source for morality when that source doesn't participate?
Even your God, whom you consider is the source of our "absolute morality" does not conform to his own morality, if what we read in the Bible is correct. How can you claim a source for morality when that source doesn't participate?
So it's only about survival? Is that it? Why is that the standard? What if another society disagrees? Who is correct?
Clearly is someone else disagrees with me I believe they are incorrect. Just like you believe I am incorrect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
I feel sorry for you. You have no basis to denounce the Nazis for the holocaust other than your own personal opinion. Thankfully, though, there is such a thing as absolute morality--and it goes deeper than your opinion.
Why is my personal opinion not enough? I believe genocide is wrong, whether against the Jews or the Amalekites. I can walk you through logical reasons I believe it is wrong, but ultimately the point is I think it is wrong, and I will try to shape my society and world to hold this as a moral principle. Trying to legitimize my opinion by appealing to some objective standard that I cannot define in any meaningful way or to a cosmic tyrant whose existence I have no evidence for is just folly. I would rather appeal to myself. I believe certain things are wrong, and as part of that belief I wil ldo my best to present a reational case for why these things are bad, I will influence my society as best I can, and I will do my best to resist the temptation to compromise those moral beliefs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
I will keep asking the question until people understand that there is a difference between absolute and relative morality.
Sure we understand it. Absolute morality is a pleasant fiction that has not been demonstrated to exist, is generally full of inconsistencies, and usually cannot even be explained.
I do want to nitpick a bit. you need to be a little careful about your wording, because I am pretty sure that you do not mean absolute morality, but rather objective morality. Absolute morality is the stance that a given action or principle is always right or wrong regardless of context or actor. This would mean that if killing is wrong, then it is always wrong even if God tells you to. Objective morality would allow for context, what kind of killing is it, self defense, war, murder, sacrifice, etc...
If there is an objective morality, or even an absolute one, we should be able to know what it is. If not, then it doesn't matter if it exists or not, we are left with the situation that all we have is our moral opinion.
My challenge to you is to lay out your foundational principles that allow one to unambiguously determine the morality of a given situation. If there is an objective yardstick for morality, is it definitively knowable by mankind, and if so what is it? Does it provide us with a better method of evaluating morality than personal opinion, shaped by societal consensus?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
So was Hitler wrong? How would you know?
Because just like the God in the Bible Hitler caused people to be tortured and murdered.
The God of the Bible not only call caused and ordered many Holocausts, he endorsed them, he endorsed the slavery of virgins, and ordered the subjects of the stories to commit these egregious and outrageous acts.
How do I know that I think that? I ask myself, "Self... Do you think Hitler was morally reprehensible?"
At the most basic level, the reason I think he was wrong is that for hundreds of years we as a global, or at least collective Western society, had been establishing the inherent value and worth of human beings as a morally correct stance, we had come to the consensus that women and children should be sheltered cherished, we had com to the consensus that a person's race or religion should not be used against them ( at least imperfectly). Hitler violated those social norms in a flagrant way. Is it any wonder than today, after these moral views have been strengthed over time, that a product of American culture would believe these things are immoral?
If Hitler had been in charge a thousand years before, there may still have been condemnation, but it certainly would not have been on the same moral grounds. The morality that we use to judge today did not exist in 940 BCE. In 3013, the morality used to judge our actions now will not be the same as that which we use to judge our own actions. Every person, every generation views all of history through its own moral lens, which is itself a product of that history.
So it's only about survival? Is that it? Why is that the standard? What if another society disagrees? Who is correct?
It's about the long-term viability of society yes. And the "correct" of any two societies is the one that lives longer (or, perhaps, the one that, over its life, is overall healthier, so that we might judge its success by the net total health over time -- but then "healthier" is a subjective analysis, just like morality).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
I feel sorry for you. You have no basis to denounce the Nazis for the holocaust other than your own personal opinion.
That's all I personally would have had, but obviously if I had been around in the 1930s, millions of others in this and other nations would agree with me and we would then on that basis deal with the Nazis. Which is exactly what happened. It was no less effective for the moral conviction arising from the bottom rather than the top.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
Thankfully, though, there is such a thing as absolute morality--and it goes deeper than your opinion.
Saying something, even repeatedly, doesn't make it so. You have no more than I do as a basis for your morality -- in fact -- but you believe your personal opinion and that of your fellow fundamentalists has a superior basis and that is actually the issue I take with it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
I will keep asking the question until people understand that there is a difference between absolute and relative morality.
Of course there is a difference, the question is, as I addressed above, whether absolute morality exists and how we would determine that it exists.
The difference is that absolute morality would be imposed by god and, presumably, would never change, otherwise its basis would be one of might rather than right.
The question we're putting to you is, does this absolute morality exist, and why do you think it does? That it's declared in the Bible, or that some (clearly not all) mores are widely held, doesn't prove anything other than that the Bible claims to contain god-ordained absolute morality, and that some aspects of actual morality are widely held. How do we prove it?
If there is an absolute morality, we should be able to expect certain things. First, any meaningful morality has to have sanctions against it being violated, therefore, we'd expect all transgressions of this universal code to be uniformly and fairly punished and all adherence uniformly and fairly rewarded, in this life, and independent of civil authority (or at least, compensating for any deficiencies in civil enforcement). We don't see that.
If there is an absolute morality, written in men's hearts, then we would expect all men to know that morality, have access to it, and agree on it. Anyone claiming anything was moral contrary to absolute morality would be instantly exposed as a liar. We don't see that happening. For example, fundamentalists claim abortion is murder, other Christians claim it is sometimes, or never is. These things would not be if morality were absolute, written in all our hearts, and uniformly enforced. All abortionists would die or contract left-handed jungle rot or whatever penalty god would decree for performing abortionists. All women who willingly submit to abortion or even secretly are glad for it would experience the consequences.
There are probably other things that aren't occurring to me in the middle of a busy work day but these should be sufficient to illustrate the point.
Now let's see if you can actually address each and every one of these points without resorting to one-liner aphorisms. What do you have?
How do I know that I think that? I ask myself, "Self... Do you think Hitler was morally reprehensible?"
Unfortunately, that's just your opinion, as you have no authority to decide that about another society, as you think morality is only relative.
Quote:
At the most basic level, the reason I think he was wrong is that for hundreds of years we as a global, or at least collective Western society, had been establishing the inherent value and worth of human beings as a morally correct stance, we had come to the consensus that women and children should be sheltered cherished, we had com to the consensus that a person's race or religion should not be used against them ( at least imperfectly). Hitler violated those social norms in a flagrant way. Is it any wonder than today, after these moral views have been strengthed over time, that a product of American culture would believe these things are immoral?
If Hitler had been in charge a thousand years before, there may still have been condemnation, but it certainly would not have been on the same moral grounds. The morality that we use to judge today did not exist in 940 BCE. In 3013, the morality used to judge our actions now will not be the same as that which we use to judge our own actions. Every person, every generation views all of history through its own moral lens, which is itself a product of that history.
-NoCapo
So time makes up for bad morality? How many years until Hitler is right?
Absolute morality isn't necessary to determine rather or not Hitler's actions were justified. Just think it through. Is killing wrong? In most cases yes, unless it's in self defense or time of war. So, was it defense? He claimed it was. He blamed the Jews (rather successfully) for the failures of Germany. Was this information valid? Well, no. It was falsified information presented in a prejudice that justified it; in short, a convincing lie. Is lying wrong? Well, what are you lying about? A lie that would result in serious damage to a person or a group of people would be considered wrong by many simply because of the negative outcomes. So, was the holocaust negative? Millions dead without justice would be negative in nearly any society (please bare in mind, this is not a biblical absolute, as genocide is in the Bible quite a bit; a big one was what creationists call 'The Great Flood" caused by God).
So, we know he lied and his lie was unjustified. He killed based on this unjustified lie. We can conclude that his actions were wrong, not with moral absolutes, but with logic used by modern society.
And bare in mind, Hitler was Christian. He claimed God was on his side.
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