Morality? What morality?

[sidbrown]

+JMJ+

OK.

There is a problem to your mathematical analysis. Look at the success of the religion that preaches to “turn the other cheek,” that preaches to “rejoice in your afflictions.” This religion is the most prevalent in the world. This religion gave us much…very much. The remarkable success of the Saints also contradicts your analysis.

Maybe you are right: statistically, the “turn the other cheek” strategy maybe is not the best one. But in the real world, it is. Ergo, the One who promoted it is above statistics: He is God.

Now that is surprising. You have to ask me what the dignity of man is in your own morality? You do not believe that humans have an innate value in them?

I think you mean “with impunity.” And the example you gave just shows us how little you think of the value of a human being.

But anyways, you got it backwards. Morality should be the basis of the law of the land, not the other way around. It is like basing the Declaration of Independence on the laws of the United States, instead of the other way around as it is today.

The problem with your qualifiers is that they trivialize killing. “Without their consent…” legitimizes suicide and euthanasia. If I give consent in having myself killed, then it is OK to either kill myself or have someone else kill me. “Without acceptable justification…” who decides that the justification is acceptable?

What you should consider is the use of the word intention. One may have the grave moral obligation to protect himself or other people from harm, and unfortunately that means he sometimes have to use lethal force.

You have the grave moral obligation to defend yourself from harm; therefore when someone wants to murder you, your primary intention is to render that person unable to harm you. Unfortunately that may sometimes mean you would have to kill him.

A soldier has the grave moral obligation to protect his comrades and the state from the enemy, therefore when he sees the enemy he his primary intention is to render that enemy unable to cause harm. Unfortunately most of the time that means he has to kill the enemy.

The state has the grave moral responsibility to “curb the spread of behavior harmful to people’s rights and to the basic rules of civil society (CCC 2266);” therefore, the state has as its primary intention the punishment of criminals to deter crime. Unfortunately the state may have to execute the criminal.

From these examples, it should be clear that the definition of murder as “The intentional taking of someone else’s life” is already sufficient.

God bless.

But what about dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Was that not murder of thousands of innocent women and children and the American authorities said it was morally justified ? If the American political authorities in the greatest democracy in the world cannot tell right from wrong, then what does that say about whether or not people are able to view morality objectively?

 

[nuntym]

+JMJ+

But what about dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Was that not murder of thousands of innocent women and children and the American authorities said it was morally justified ? If the American political authorities in the greatest democracy in the world cannot tell right from wrong, then what does that say about whether or not people are able to view morality objectively?

Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation. A danger of modern weapons is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern weapons – especially atomic, biological or chemical weapons – to commit such crimes. (*Gaudium et spes*)

It is interesting to note that Nagasaki was the Japanese city that time with the largest population of Catholics and Christians. It is also interesting to note that “ground zero” of the detonation there was the largest Catholic cathedral in Japan.

That same “greatest democracy in the world” now says it is OK to murder unborn babies in the millions.

That’s why I do not believe in secular democracy.

God bless.

 

[jonfawkes]

That’s why I do not believe in secular democracy.

God bless.

Theocracy is far scarier. In a democracy you can vote the bums out. It’s hard to get rid of “the servants of God” usually ends bloodily.

 

[inocente]

Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation. A danger of modern weapons is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern weapons – especially atomic, biological or chemical weapons – to commit such crimes. (Gaudium et spes)

Gaudium et spes is dated 1965, after these terrible events.

It is also interesting to note that “ground zero” of the detonation there was the largest Catholic cathedral in Japan.

Not sure about that. It says here that the remains were moved to ground zero and here that the original cathedral was 500m away. In any event many cathedrals are in city centers and so would be near to a ground zero.

We’ll never really know whether Truman’s decision did the least harm - it seems Japan was also working on its own WMDs. - bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12521395

 

[Curious_Seed]

:idea:

Here a scenario for you to consider:

Someone strapped a few bombs to his body, and blew up some people whom he considers his enemies. He also died in the process.

If you agree with the person, you will consider him a “morally upright, self-sacrificing hero”.
If you disagree with the person, you will consider him a “morally evil, horrible terrorist”.

Conclusion: the application of the adjective “moral” is the result of your subjective assessment of a fact. It has no “objective” meaning. It is just one of the feel-good, but meaningless “filler” words. Think about it.

I like the scenario, but there are some dynamics involved which require parsing.

" If you agree/disagree, you will consider " - not necessarily - but rather, you may consider.

Considering: " morally upright/morally evil, self-sacrificing/horrible, hero/terrorist. "

Can one assess each factor subjectively? Yes.

Can one juxtapose nouns and adjectives to satisfy that subject assessment? Yes.

Does that determine that objective assessment of morality is nullified? No.

One may make one’s own assessment of one’s own or other’s actions and assign their subjective moral assessment accordingly. However, an objective assessment, of the same, is not ipso facto precluded.

Objectivity is not necessarily impinged by subjectivity.

 

[nuntym]

+JMJ+

Theocracy is far scarier. In a democracy you can vote the bums out. It’s hard to get rid of “the servants of God” usually ends bloodily.

Catholic theocracy is actually the most benevolent form of government ever.

Did you know that the whole of medieval Europe (Christendom) was a Catholic theocracy? The medieval European monarchy WAS Catholic theocracy. Watch the result of this type of government on the lives of the peasants back then, who had relatively more benefits and freedom than us today.

Did you know that countries and nations are the result of Catholic theocracy? In the presence of other empires prior, there were no countries, only one big empire. But in the middle ages, the Holy Roman Empire was made to be the protector and shining example for all the other monarchies in Europe, not their conqueror. It was only with the rise of Napoleon that attempts to unite Europe into one big empire came back…followed by Hitler.

If Catholic theocracy comes back, I’d be one of them who’d immediately sign up.

God bless.

 

[jonfawkes]

+JMJ+

Catholic theocracy is actually the most benevolent form of government ever.

So all the revolutions and move toward democracy of Europe are what??? People must have felt they were living the greatest of lives to revolt.

 

[nuntym]

+JMJ+

So all the revolutions and move toward democracy of Europe are what??? People must have felt they were living the greatest of lives to revolt.

World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the current population implosion of the Western World are the results of these revolutions.

God bless.

 

[jonfawkes]

+JMJ+

World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the current population implosion of the Western World are the results of these revolutions.

God bless.

Crusades, Inquisition, 100 years war etc

 

[nuntym]

+JMJ+

Crusades, Inquisition, 100 years war etc

There will be no perfect government as long as there are fallable people in the world, jonfawkes. However, these that you mentioned cannot even compare to the ones I mentioned.

God bless.

 

[nuntym]

+JMJ+

Gaudium et spes is dated 1965, after these terrible events.

Not sure about that. It says here that the remains were moved to ground zero and here that the original cathedral was 500m away. In any event many cathedrals are in city centers and so would be near to a ground zero.

We’ll never really know whether Truman’s decision did the least harm - it seems Japan was also working on its own WMDs. - bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12521395

Yes you are right, it is hard to judge past events, with those people in the thick of things and we just sitting here speculating in front of the computer screen.

God bless.

 

[jonfawkes]

+JMJ+

There will be no perfect government as long as there are fallable people in the world, jonfawkes. However, these that you mentioned cannot even compare to the ones I mentioned.

God bless.

Why not? - 100 years of war doesn’t seem like it stems from a great political system, or the thirty year war either.

 

[4Horsemen]

More people died in wars of the twentieth Century than in any other century, notwithstanding the higher population in that more men were probably sent to war. Although all war is brutal, the advance of nuclear weapons in the twentieth century has made society think more deeply about the morality of devices that destroy whole districts and cities killing and maiming innocent civilians including women and children. Then there’s the biproduct of radiation which causes increased harm to populations.

The requirements for a just war have already been mentioned earlier on this thread, but I don’t think the use of nuclear weapons is ever justified.

 

[jonfawkes]

More people died in wars of the twentieth Century than in any other century, notwithstanding the higher population in that more men were probably sent to war. Although all war is brutal, the advance of nuclear weapons in the twentieth century has made society think more deeply about the morality of devices that destroy whole districts and cities killing and maiming innocent civilians including women and children. Then there’s the biproduct of radiation which causes increased harm to populations.

The requirements for a just war have already been mentioned earlier on this thread, but I don’t think the use of nuclear weapons is ever justified.

What’s the number of deaths required to make a war horrible?

 

[sidbrown]

Although all war is brutal, the advance of nuclear weapons in the twentieth century has made society think more deeply about the morality of devices that destroy whole districts and cities killing and maiming innocent civilians including women and children. Then there’s the biproduct of radiation which causes increased harm to populations.

The requirements for a just war have already been mentioned earlier on this thread, but I don’t think the use of nuclear weapons is ever justified.

Yes. I agree.

 

[Betterave]

+JMJ+

Unfortunately, any disagreement on the Church’s doctrines on human sexuality stems from this. If you do accept that man’s life is sacred, i.e. man was made for God, to God, by God, then that means that the beginning, the well spring of life, man’s procreative powers, must be sacred too, and thus any abuse on man’s part of his procreative powers is morally evil.

God bless.

This is false because many disagreements still do arise subsequent to the disagreeing parties accepting your premise here about man and his relation to God.

 

[Betterave]

We omitted any circle that didn’t intersect (“we exclude any system that says murder is generally good on the basis it is downright unreasonable”), so the systems that are left must perforce intersect - they only converge because that was the condition for adding them to the diagram.

So what? The circles we omitted could easily enough be included (although Venn diagrams with more than three circles become very complicated and completely impractical). That would change nothing. Your statement would still be false, mine would still be true:

“the intersection is not “just an artifact produced by our criterion” (whatever that means); it’s a visual presentation of the convergence of various strands of reasoning towards a set of common conclusions.”

[Please note that this isn’t a purely abstract statement about what any possible Venn diagram would show us; it’s a claim about what the *real Venn diagram would look like, one which was based on real moral reasoning and real moral judgments.]

You stand at the door of a room and only allow women in, then look into the room and exclaim how miraculous it is there’s no men in there? Work with me here.

How is that at all analogous?? (It’s not.)

By looking in our women-only room we can’t conclude there are no men in the world. By deciding to only include systems which say murder in general is wrong we also skew the sample.

By looking at the intersection of the Venn diagram in question we also can’t and don’t conclude that there are no other ways of rationalizing morality in the world… so your point here is entirely irrelevant and your talk of “skewing the sample” is completely inappropriate for describing the information that is presented by the Venn diagram in question. (Please note that Venn diagrams are no more about “taking a (possibly skewed) sample” than they are about “taking an average”).

The reasoning in each system is contingent on the system’s assumptions, which were not arrived at objectively [begging the question]. Each circle represents the -]decisions /-]judgments in a system. The non-intersecting part of each circle represents -]decisions/-] judgments which differ from other systems. The fact that some -]decisions/-] judgments converge cannot be taken alone *[and it wasn’t]

, we need to remember that both the reasoning and other decisions differ, and this together with our criterion that excluded non-converging systems brings into question whether any of it is objective. Doesn’t prove there’s no objectivity, but it says that logically it’s probably coincidental.

Your conclusion here is simply another non sequitur.

What do you think ‘objective’ means?

 

[dskysmine]

Betterave, the problem with the Venn diagrams is that they support the notion of subjective morality. A Venn diagram where each circle is a subjective morality doesn’t make the intersection objective, it makes you change the notion of “objective” to agreement on “subjectivity”. >_>

 

[inocente]

Your conclusion here is simply another non sequitur.

We better stop there rave - A = {my take on set theory}; B = {your take on set theory}; A ∩ B = { }

 

[Betterave]

We better stop there rave - A = {my take on set theory}; B = {your take on set theory}; A ∩ B = { }

LOL! You love to dwell in cloudy, squishy abstractions, don’t you? What is A and what is B? We’d better *stop *well *before *explaining *that *kind of thing, right?