I’m kind of tired, so I might be flubbing this. But doesn’t this just amount to “could be wrong”? If so, it applies equally to both sides of the fence.
In other words, yes I could be wrong. If there’s no God, there is no objective guide post. If I’m right, however, there is.
Even if 1234 is right, there’s still no objective guide post. Ditto if you are right, with regard to evolutionary morality.
Morality is always situational, but it is tied closely to the welfare of the group and basic survival. This is the objective guidepost, but the expressions of morality change as societies change. This could be defined as an evolutionary mandate, but I prefer to stick closer to a reference to history
An ethical norm based on the overall welfare of society can build a very strong system of ethics.There are many little crimes that people commit every day which tear slightly at the fabric of society. The ATM ‘robbery’ is one; if too many episodes of this sort of things happen, the bank will pull its ATM and people will be inconvenienced. Particularly in high-crime areas, this sort of petty crime can be very destructive. People steal from newspaper dispensers; these are pulled and those wanting to find jobs in the want ads have to travel to find them. People pilfer small items from stores, such as batteries, so that the store no longer offers these small but important convenience items. Any woman knows that if she wants to try on a nice dress at a store, she has to find someone to unlock it first. When this proceeds to extremes, as in Iraq currently, there is widespread graft and corruption and nothing gets accomplished–electricity, water, sewage control–despite the best efforts of our military. It is important to observe not only the law but the intent behind the law to keep the fabric of society safe and intact and that is why it would never occur to me to rob an ATM customer.
When moral edicts ignore the basic needs of society, they are bound to fail. The RCC’s prohibition of ‘artificial’ contraception is a textbook case in point. Paul VI, despite the advice of those he chose to advise him on this subject, issued Humanae Vitae, which was very unpopular from the outset. Priests felt conflicted in advising their parishioners, began ignoring it, and the parishioners, in turn, gradually began ignoring HV and many other church edicts. HV caused many Catholics to wander away from the church, or to become cafeteria Catholics or nominal at best. Mass attendance and conversion stats–1/3 native-born RC’s no longer considering themselves RC–bear this out. Catholics now widely practice abc and feel that Rome erred on HV. Proscribing abc is not in the best interests of society.
There are RC’s on this forum who won’t immunize their children. The greater good of society doesn’t concern them; they are seduced by bogus medicine. I feel that they are very wrong and dangerous.
Morality cannot be objective, by which I infer that you mean fixed, because the society in question and what concerns its welfare is bound to change. Sometimes this leads to terrible choices.
On at least one occasion,Jews who were fleeing the Nazis during WWII strangled a crying baby in their own party who would give them away and destroy them. What should they have done? Then there is the old conundrum of the bus driver having to chose between hitting the child on the road of a bridge or endangering his busful of passengers by swerving against the siderail. What should he do and whom should he kill? Murder is wrong, but is it wrong when more would be murdered if it didn’t take place?
There is no fixed objective ethical system which can answer these questions.
There was never an objective guidepost. The RCC felt that it was moral to burn heretics alive, then it changed its mind. The RCC felt that usury and making a profit was immoral, then it changed its mind. The certainty that the RCC cannot err makes it very prone to errors.
