Morality? What morality?

[sidbrown]

It seems to have permitted their enslavement as a legal remedy, essentially as a punishment for those guilty of “arms dealing.” Kind of like hard core community service as a penal sanction, instead of imprisonment or execution. Nothing to do with endorsing slavery as such, or permitting the enslavement of innocent Saracens and pagans.

What is your ‘explanation’ of it??

Seems to me it endorses perpetual slavery for certain people and that it facilitated the Portuguese slave trade:
“We weighing all and singular the premises with due meditation, and noting that since we had formerly by other letters of ours granted among other things free and ample faculty to the aforesaid King Alfonso – to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery…"

 

[tonyrey]

And what is your explanation for the papal Bull Romanus Pontifex (Nicholas V), January 8, 1455 which permitted the enslavement of Saracens and pagans?

The* Code of Canon Law *provides that “No doctrine is understood to be **infallibly **defined unless it is clearly established as such” (CIC 749 § 3)

 

[sidbrown]

The* Code of Canon Law *provides that “No doctrine is understood to be **infallibly **defined unless it is clearly established as such” (CIC 749 § 3)

So an official papal bull carries no weight with Catholics?

 

[tonyrey]

So an official papal bull carries no weight with Catholics?

It carries weight but our ultimate authority is our conscience…

 

[davidv]

So an official papal bull carries no weight with Catholics?

Pretty broad leap between this statement and the post you responded to. Care to elaborate?

 

[sidbrown]

Pretty broad leap between this statement and the post you responded to. Care to elaborate?

The question was whether or not the Catholic Church has always condemned slavery. I don’t see how tony could say so in view of the papal bull Romanus Pontifex, and in view of the fact that Catholic priests and bishops held slaves in the USA and there were no objections raised.

 

[Betterave]

Seems to me it endorses perpetual slavery for certain people and that it facilitated the Portuguese slave trade:
“We weighing all and singular the premises with due meditation, and noting that since we had formerly by other letters of ours granted among other things free and ample faculty to the aforesaid King Alfonso – to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery…"

You’ll need to read a little context, sid (almost ALWAYS a good idea ). Yes, it endorses perpetual slavery for certain people, just like we endorse perpetual imprisonment or even execution for certain people. So what? And yes a papal bull carries weight, but no, it certainly does not ipso facto constitute a series of infallible declarations of dogma. You should spend some time reading the Catechism. This kind of thing should be obvious to any decently educated Catholic.

 

[sidbrown]

Yes, it endorses perpetual slavery for certain people, just like we endorse perpetual imprisonment or even execution for certain people. So what?

So it is not true that the Catholic Church has consistently opposed slavery.
And how does anyone explain the fact that Catholic priests and bishops held slaves in the USA and I don’t see where there were any objections to that?
I don’t deny that the Catholic Church has opposed slavery in recent times. However, it is not clear to me that this was the consistent view. Even in the New Testament, slaves are told to be subject their Masters and there was not a call for them to be free.

 

[davidv]

So it is not true that the Catholic Church has consistently opposed slavery.

Since the word slavery has meanings that vary with context and cultures, I think this is a very unenlightening statement. It is a generalization of a subject that contains legitimate distinctions.

And how does anyone explain the fact that Catholic priests and bishops held slaves in the USA and I don’t see where there were any objections to that?

Priests and bishops are human beings, subject to temptations to sin like everyone else. Their sins do not define Catholic teaching nor make it void.

I don’t deny that the Catholic Church has opposed slavery in recent times. However, it is not clear to me that this was the consistent view. Even in the New Testament, slaves are told to be subject their Masters and there was not a call for them to be free.

Was this the same kind of slavery that existed in the America South in the 18th century?

 

[inocente]

No, not by definition; by a misreading of the definition, which fails to understand the specific moral implications of the term ‘intentionally’ in this context.

Yes, by definition. The definition doesn’t mention morality. No point making up your own definition and then accusing others of failing to understand. No point at all.

*Right. The Samurai regarded something as moral (although others disagree); therefore it *was **moral for them, since there is no objective morality. And since, as we have assumed, there is no objective morality, this goes some way to *proving *that there is no objective morality.

Right. You regard something as immoral (although others disagree); therefore it’s immoral for everyone since you say so, and that proves there’s an objective morality.

If right and wrong are universal and fixed for all time yet we have no way of knowing if we’re there yet then it’s just a pipe dream, an excuse for moral imperialism.

It’s very hard for us not to think of our own morality as the most enlightened ever, but we do that subjectively and relative to our own morality.

 

[inocente]

Priests and bishops are human beings, subject to temptations to sin like everyone else. Their sins do not define Catholic teaching nor make it void.

I don’t know anything about the point in question but if it happened and happened uncensored then there’s a case to answer, whatever the technicalities – lack of oversight would be an poor excuse, not a good reason.

 

[dskysmine]

That’s what “used the expression” means. Sorry, bud, that’s a reality of the English language.

I was referring to post 381 where I used that expression.

Point being…??

Point being that if you are defending what the Church says you have to admit that morality is objective! You still haven’t!

Huh? Dude, love is always justified; that implies that it is always justifiable. Again, just simple corollaries of the English language. (And I’m pretty sure Portuguese has the same grammatical structures and logical corollaries.)

What makes one justifiable and the other not justifiable? Apparently it is what you think is right.

-.-

Page 14 is surely good enough. Just go to where you and I start to exchange posts.

Don’t you know what “point me to a post” means? It’s very easy to say “I already explained it in page 14” but I don’t see it in any post. If you don’t point me to a post you are just showing that you can’t even acknowledge where you did it.

LOL! I love etymology. How about you?

Apparently more than you do…

LOL! Are you implying that you cannot do what I asked?:
Drop the ego, drop the presumption that you’re right, be open to correction based on the assumption that you might be wrong. Don’t summarize my views inaccurately. Look up the following terms and do your utmost to avoid these fallacious argument forms: ignoratio elenchi, straw man, begging the question. Strive for humility in everything you write.

As far as I can see you are not being humble. Maybe you can point me to a post where you demonstrate it… (oh wait, you don’t know how to[/irony])

"13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 18

“If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong; if I have not then why do you strike me?” - or in your case, Daniel, calumniate me?

I have pointed where you lied about me. I have pointed the flaws I saw in your scenarios and presumptions and you said that I was dumb for not getting them. As for arguments, you haven’t really presented any so I can’t really point where it is wrong.

 

[dskysmine]

LOL! What is that supposed to mean? What “subjective reasoning”?

You said: “Lying does not consist simply in saying something that is untrue.”
As far as I know a lie is: “a type of deception in the form of an untruthful statement.”

 

[dskysmine]

Right. The Samurai regarded something as moral (although others disagree); therefore it *was *moral for them, since there is no objective morality. And since, as we have assumed, there is no objective morality, this goes some way to *proving *that there is no objective morality.

So you assume that there is no objective morality?.. Why?

 

[dskysmine]

Yes, by definition. The definition doesn’t mention morality. No point making up your own definition and then accusing others of failing to understand. No point at all.

Right. You regard something as immoral (although others disagree); therefore it’s immoral for everyone since you say so, and that proves there’s an objective morality.

If right and wrong are universal and fixed for all time yet we have no way of knowing if we’re there yet then it’s just a pipe dream, an excuse for moral imperialism.

It’s very hard for us not to think of our own morality as the most enlightened ever, but we do that subjectively and relative to our own morality.

Not entirely. We feel “shame” and “guilt” after we do certain things that we consider immoral, if morality was individually subjective we wouldn’t feel that, for example.

 

[dskysmine]

Again: we are discussing suicide as a *moral *act/category here, not suicide as a merely *physical *act.

You seem to think that morality is disconnected with reality… wouldn’t that make morality a “fantasy”?

 

[sidbrown]

You said: “Lying does not consist simply in saying something that is untrue.”
As far as I know a lie is: “a type of deception in the form of an untruthful statement.”

Once again one considers intention important to the definition, while the other does not.

 

[tonyrey]

The question was whether or not the Catholic Church has always condemned slavery. I don’t see how tony could say so in view of the papal bull Romanus Pontifex, and in view of the fact that Catholic priests and bishops held slaves in the USA and there were no objections raised.

The ways in which the laity, priests, bishops, nuns and popes have behaved or failed to behave has no bearing on the Church’s doctrines.

 

[sidbrown]

No Pope has ever decreed that slavery is morally justifiable.

According to an article in First Things, October 2005, by Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., under the title “Development or Reversal?”:
“In 1863 John Henry Newman penned some fascinating reflections on slavery. A fellow Catholic, William T. Allies, asked him to comment on a lecture he was planning to give, asserting that slavery was intrinsically evil. Newman replied that, although he would like to see slavery eliminated, he could not go so far as to condemn it as intrinsically evil. For if it were, St. Paul would have had to order Philemon, ‘liberate all your slaves at once.’ Newman, as I see it, stood with the whole Catholic tradition. In 1866 the Holy Office, in response to an inquiry from Africa, ruled that although slavery (servitus) was undesirable, it was not per se opposed to natural or divine law. This ruling pertained to the kind of servitude that was customary in certain parts of Africa at the time.”
According to a statement issued by the Holy Office, June 20, 1866:
"Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary to the natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery and these are referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred canons… It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, exchanged or given.”

 

[awatkins69]

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.

Sorry I’m jumping in a month later, but that’s just not true. First off, I don’t think that in any case it is moral to do suicide bombing whether I agree with the person or not, whether it is an anti-abortion activist or a pro-abortion activist. Also, the idea that moral statements are just expressions of feelings is flat out incoherent; they’re propositions which can be either true or false. The real question is under what conditions they’re true or false. It’s wildly implausible to think that a moral proposition p is true just in case I believe that p is true. Otherwise, I’d be just as infallible as the Holy Father. My believing that something is the case doesn’t make it the case…