What is this "scientific method" you all speak of?

[Peter_Plato]

Since there is no “morally wrong” in the absolute sense, only within the framework of a given human society at a specific time of its existence (by taking all the mitigating and exacerbating circumstances into consideration) - yes, you seem to get it. Took a long time too.

Sometimes you make quite good remarks, and then you bring it all down with such nonsense. Facts are objective, the value system is subjective. It does not mean that values are “inconsequential”.

Well, it does mean they are inconsequential in any objective sense. When a murderer kills someone, what that means, essentially, is that “we” as a society are emotionally appalled by what he did, but that what he did is NOT a bad thing in itself or in any absolute sense, merely that it rubs us the wrong way, emotionally.

If we all at once came to our senses and, like you, realized that there is no real sense in which morality could be applied to speak of, we would stop being so appalled by acts like murder, rape, and torture and simply “live and let live” BECAUSE we have no grounds in any ultimate or real sense to be appalled by any of it.

Thus, a kind of Buddhist detachment from the so-called “moral” events would free us from being tied to those raw and disturbing emotions of the “moral” kind. Since there is nothing really wrong, then there would be nothing really wrong with divesting ourselves of moral emotional baggage. Indeed, tyrants and dictators have the right idea in that they don’t allow “let live” to interfere with their “live” ideology unnecessarily.

If morality is merely subjective and emotional, then there can be no discussion to convince those “enlightened” dictators that what they do is anything more than emotionally distressing to some. Not that there is anything really “wrong” with that. What is a bit of emotional angst in the bigger scheme of things when there are bigger fish to fry such as the glorious emotional reward one would get from imposing one’s will on the entire world?

Speaking of a house built on sand. I suspect this is precisely the kind of thinking which led to the brutal atheistic regimes that have been responsible for over a hundred million deaths by genocide over the past hundred fifty years - Pol Pot, Idi Amin, communist China, Soviet Russia, etc. I can just imagine the dialogue: "Oh, people don’t like to suffer and die? They’ll get over it soon enough. BANG.

Do you smell something wrong with this picture?

Yup, as soon as you detach morality from reality and make it “merely” subjective, that is when you turn moral grounds into shifting sand. Especially when you couple that move with eliminative materialism where “persons” are nothing but biochemical processes. What is the significance of ending a biochemical process if the “emergent” person is a mere illusion or epiphenomenon cast off as a bi-product of the chemical interactions? It’s called moral nihilism (aka Hell,) Hee_Zen.

This is not me reading stuff into your view, these are the logical consequences of your view. It is highly susceptible to a reductio as absurdum. It is just that you don’t like the moral consequences so you arbitrarily conjure up and grant arbitrarily some ”sense” of moral consequence in order to keep yourself from stepping off the edge.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Are you familiar with Godwin’s law? I guess not.

Do you suppose Godwin’s Law describes a fallacy? It doesn’t.

It is a “memetic tool” that Godwin created in an attempt reduce the incidence of inappropriate analogies between Nazi Germany and you name it. It is also called Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies.

The question on this thread is not an analogy, but a direct question about Nazi morality itself - Was Nazi killing of Jews moral or not? - hence not susceptible to the invocation of Godwin’s Law since it isn’t a comparison or analogy but a direct question.

So, yes I am familiar with Godwin’s Law.

 

[Hee_Zen]

Well, it does mean they are inconsequential in any objective sense. When a murderer kills someone, what that means, essentially, is that “we” as a society are emotionally appalled by what he did, but that what he did is NOT a bad thing in itself or in any absolute sense, merely that it rubs us the wrong way, emotionally.

If morality is merely subjective and emotional…

(Emphasis mine) You are confusing “absolute” and “objective”. Investigate them. “Absolute / relative” as opposed to “objective / subjective”.

Surprise, surprise… you keep on neglecting the points I make about the changes in morality in different societies.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Furthermore, you all neglected to answer my other examples, which clearly show that “morality” is contingent upon the prevailing social structure. Here are a few more:

1. 
   *]In ancient Japan, the members of samurai class could cut down anyone for any perceived violation of their “honor”, and this was accepted by the whole society.
   *]During the dark ages in Europe the torturing and burning of the heretics was the accepted social custom - the torturing part performed by the Inquisition, the burning performed by the temporal authorities after the poor witches “confessed” to consorting with the devil.
   *]During the same time Jews were persecuted as the “killers of Christ”, they were ostracized, placed in the ghettos, and killed with impunity.
   *]In the biblical times, slavery was widely accepted, and not just the “indentured servitude” type of it.
   
   Somehow I don’t see your “moral outcry” against these actions… at best you try to whitewash them as the “prevailing custom of those times”. You really should consider the beam in your own eyes before pointing out the mote in mine.
   
   As such you don’t have a leg to stand on, when you lament about my lack of explicitly reflecting on ALL the remarks in a post.

1. 
   I think you missed the point, yet again.
   
   It is you who are saying morality is contingent upon prevailing social structure, therefore it is you who cannot raise any objections to perceived moral failures at any time in the past because you claim those were only apparent failures from the false perspective of our prevailing social structure.
   
   Allowing the possibility that a moral POV that insists criteria other than yours exists for attributing moral failures to past societies you would have to permit those making claims about morality different from yours to explain why and how they consider past behaviours to be moral failures by their accounting methods, not yours,
   
   That is precisely what you do not do. As soon as anyone makes the claim that, for example, slavery in Biblical times was different from the chattel slavery practiced in more modern times and therefore needs to be judged on its own merits rather than by a confused and ambiguous claim that all types of slavery must be equally wrong despite their differences merely because slavery involves restriction of freedoms, you merely insist all slavery is slavery. End of story.
   
   The inconsistency is that you permit whatever interpretation of morality you wish to invoke to justify your assumption that morality itself is based upon changing social climates, but you hold those who claim morality is objective to standards of your preconceptions about what absolute morality means, insisting that “absolute” must imply always and everywhere exactly the same regardless of circumstances, motives or ends.
   
   You afford your view all kinds of leeway but allow none to those who disagree with you.
   
   This is the problem, Hee_Zen, you are unwilling to listen to the moral views of others, insisting either that your view is the correct one or that some absolute, to the letter set of moral rules is the only alternative to yours.
   
   Your four examples each allow somewhat of a range of moral opprobrium depending upon the person’s willingness to fully consider all the relevant facts, motives and knowledge of the agents involved. The fact that you paint the Samurai actions as involving honour, but the actions from the “dark ages” and those done by “killers of Christ” in such prejudicial terms means you have already made up your mind about western religious folk and their motivations.
   
   As to the lack of “moral outcry” over past actions, why would anyone spend a great deal of emotional distress over what has happened in the past over what nothing can be done to change? Better to try to understand the real motives, compulsions, lack of moral fiber, what was missing, morally speaking, from their thought processes and try to not repeat their same mistakes. Mistakes they, indeed, were.
   
   Although, in your view, it seems, they weren’t mistakes, just a different way of behaving from our own and nothing can be learned since “learning” implies that certain moral knowledge is possible and that actual progress can be made in the area of morality - a premise you deny in principle.

 

[Gregory_Olson]

Well, it does mean they are inconsequential in any objective sense. When a murderer kills someone, what that means, essentially, is that “we” as a society are emotionally appalled by what he did, but that what he did is NOT a bad thing in itself or in any absolute sense, merely that it rubs us the wrong way, emotionally.

If we all at once came to our senses and, like you, realized that there is no real sense in which morality could be applied to speak of, we would stop being so appalled by acts like murder, rape, and torture and simply “live and let live” BECAUSE we have no grounds in any ultimate or real sense to be appalled by any of it.

Thus, a kind of Buddhist detachment from the so-called “moral” events would free us from being tied to those raw and disturbing emotions of the “moral” kind. Since there is nothing really wrong, then there would be nothing really wrong with divesting ourselves of moral emotional baggage. Indeed, tyrants and dictators have the right idea in that they don’t allow “let live” to interfere with their “live” ideology unnecessarily.

If morality is merely subjective and emotional, then there can be no discussion to convince those “enlightened” dictators that what they do is anything more than emotionally distressing to some. Not that there is anything really “wrong” with that. What is a bit of emotional angst in the bigger scheme of things when there are bigger fish to fry such as the glorious emotional reward one would get from imposing one’s will on the entire world?

Speaking of a house built on sand. I suspect this is precisely the kind of thinking which led to the brutal atheistic regimes that have been responsible for over a hundred million deaths by genocide over the past hundred fifty years - Pol Pot, Idi Amin, communist China, Soviet Russia, etc. I can just imagine the dialogue: "Oh, people don’t like to suffer and die? They’ll get over it soon enough. BANG.

Do you smell something wrong with this picture?

Yup, as soon as you detach morality from reality and make it “merely” subjective, that is when you turn moral grounds into shifting sand. Especially when you couple that move with eliminative materialism where “persons” are nothing but biochemical processes. What is the significance of ending a biochemical process if the “emergent” person is a mere illusion or epiphenomenon cast off as a bi-product of the chemical interactions? It’s called moral nihilism (aka Hell,) Hee_Zen.

This is not me reading stuff into your view, these are the logical consequences of your view. It is highly susceptible to a reductio as absurdum. It is just that you don’t like the moral consequences so you arbitrarily conjure up and grant arbitrarily some ”sense” of moral consequence in order to keep yourself from stepping off the edge.

Where would we be without you, Peter Plato?

None of the atheists I know are true atheists–they’re unable to accept the absurdist despair that follows logically from their materialism. They all believe irrationally in some set of true values or meaning. Which is understandable, especially because we all seem to be internally inclined to a similar system of absolute meaning. Perhaps this is why those heroic few that are able to really deny this, those true leaders of secularism such as Franz Kafka and Mussolini, also go a little bit off the deep end.

-Greg

PS. I’d like to fix a typo in the key sentence of my previous post: it should have read: “Both our claims depend ON the truth of our respective moral systems.” Sorry–I hope that didn’t completely confuse anyone.

 

[Peter_Plato]

(Emphasis mine) You are confusing “absolute” and “objective”. Investigate them. “Absolute / relative” as opposed to “objective / subjective”.

Surprise, surprise… you keep on neglecting the points I make about the changes in morality in different societies.

If “objective” is based upon changing and subjective emotions, then “objective” morality in the sense you mean entails nothing more than “hinged upon everchanging subjective standards.” You can’t make subjectivity “objective” merely by claiming it is possible, in principle, for some people to agree about subjective claims.

If you wish to make a case that subjectivity is “objective” in any real sense you must argue for the subsisting ontological reality of “subjects.” Eliminative materialism doesn’t get you there.

Your argument relies upon the fact that your hearers have something more in mind when they hear the word “subjective” than what you can possibly defend given your metaphysical naturalism. You rely on the ambiguous word “subjective” to pawn off the rest of your morality as if it has robust standing all on its own. It doesn’t.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

It is called “constitutional republic”.

Numbers 31:17-18. “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.” This is called sexual slavery.

That’s what you call it anyway.

I don’t see that as an endorsement of slavery per se.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

It is called “constitutional republic”.

O.K., so you distinguish a constitutional republic such as ours from the original notion of democracy practiced in Athens during the time of Socrates. That’s fine.

But I guess you know that the term democracy also applies to a Constitutional Republic such as ours in that the people get to say who will rule.

Political Science is not a hard science. It is soft and very soft, depending on the society.

A democracy can be superior to a monarchy, or it can be inferior to a monarchy, depending on the moral fiber of the people who inhabit the monarchy or the democracy (or the constitutional republic).

If the people are virtuous in a democracy, the rulers had better be virtuous or they will lose their hold on the people.

If the people are corrupt, the rulers are bound to be corrupt, because a corrupt people will vote for the people who most reflect their own values.

There is a reason why North Korea is such a corrupt nation. The people have been corrupted by the fear of their rulers; the rulers know that, so they use all that much more force to corrupt the people. The fact that North Korea is essentially an atheistic nation means that there is no counterforce of religion (virtue) to reinstate the courage of the people.

In North America we are seeing an atheistic strategy emerge concurrent with the decline of the popular will and the mistrust of government. The atheist movements all over America are gaining force and are boldly challenging the virtues of religion. North American civilization is in decline. Many people feel that in their gut. They have no idea what to do about it. They fear their government now more than ever. It will take one helluva hero to restore political and economic sanity in America, and inspire the people not to sink, as the North Koreans have sank, into utter and devastating submission.

The next election is going to be critical.

That’s my “scientific” take on our present dilemma.

Either the political pendulum will swing back toward sanity, or it will swing all the way into a national lunacy and enslavement of the people … and a corrupted people will allow it.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Furthermore, you all neglected to answer my other examples, which clearly show that “morality” is contingent upon the prevailing social structure. Here are a few more:

1. 
   *]In ancient Japan, the members of samurai class could cut down anyone for any perceived violation of their “honor”, and this was accepted by the whole society.
   *]During the dark ages in Europe the torturing and burning of the heretics was the accepted social custom - the torturing part performed by the Inquisition, the burning performed by the temporal authorities after the poor witches “confessed” to consorting with the devil.
   *]During the same time Jews were persecuted as the “killers of Christ”, they were ostracized, placed in the ghettos, and killed with impunity.
   *]In the biblical times, slavery was widely accepted, and not just the “indentured servitude” type of it.
   
   Somehow I don’t see your “moral outcry” against these actions… at best you try to whitewash them as the “prevailing custom of those times”.

1. 
   You are funny. How could I whitewash all these things if I didn’t even comment on them? Of course all these things are morally reprehensible. So, what’'s your point again?
   
   I am afraid that you are again in the business of obfuscating, in order to deflect from the horrors of your worldview. Sure, your own golden rule is relatively unobjectionable (we could discuss the fine print, but I guess others have one that already), but your worldview includes an ‘objective morality’ that would have allowed the killing of the Jews under Hitler to be considered moral if it would have found general acceptance in German society. Now that is a worldview of horrors.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Where would we be without you, Peter Plato?

Indeed. A big to Peter. I hadn’t yet read his replies to Hee Zen when I just posted mine, but he already had said things much better and answered much more thoroughly. But perhaps it can’t hurt to continue to push Hee Zen on the horrors that his worldview entails, even if he himself goes much more innocuously by his golden rule.

None of the atheists I know are true atheists–they’re unable to accept the absurdist despair that follows logically from their materialism. They all believe irrationally in some set of true values or meaning. Which is understandable, especially because we all seem to be internally inclined to a similar system of absolute meaning. Perhaps this is why those heroic few that are able to really deny this, those true leaders of secularism such as Franz Kafka and Mussolini, also go a little bit off the deep end.

-Greg

Well said.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

None of the atheists I know are true atheists–they’re unable to accept the absurdist despair that follows logically from their materialism. They all believe irrationally in some set of true values or meaning. Which is understandable, especially because we all seem to be internally inclined to a similar system of absolute meaning.

The usual “out” supplied by the atheists I’m acquainted with is the notion of “positive atheism.” But from what I’ve see of atheism (having been one myself) there is nothing positive about it. Atheism simply says Nogod. The first syllable “No” tells it all. No God, no soul, no everlasting life, no final joy. Zip, nada, zero. There is an absoluteness about this irrationalism that defies understanding, never mind celebration.

 

[Peter_Plato]

None of the atheists I know are true atheists–they’re unable to accept the absurdist despair that follows logically from their materialism. They all believe irrationally in some set of true values or meaning. Which is understandable, especially because we all seem to be internally inclined to a similar system of absolute meaning. Perhaps this is why those heroic few that are able to really deny this, those true leaders of secularism such as Franz Kafka and Mussolini, also go a little bit off the deep end.

-Greg

I suspect there is a strong argument for believing in God somewhere in the above. Not a proof as such but a compelling reason.

I’ve seen it depicted as the moral argument for God but there are several iterations and the one above is enlightening.

If we begin with the atheist mantra that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, then the atheist claim that no God exists amounts to an extraordinary moral claim that has extraordinary moral implications.

What it entails is that the ground of being, absent God, is merely meaningless brute fact and valueless, in itself, matter. There would be no inherent “value,” moral or otherwise, that could be derived from eliminative materialism, since value is not built into the ground of existence itself, if that ground were merely matter which could not, in turn, ground human moral values.

Therefore, the claim that God does NOT exist has extraordinary moral implications and, therefore, would require extraordinary and certain proof because to accept it would require a complete rewriting of human moral values because any grounds for thinking values of any sort exist ontologically would be removed.

To anticipate a reply that this amounts to a claim that atheists cannot be moral, let me say that such a retort simply misses the point. Atheists CAN be moral, but there are no rational grounds for being moral (in the sense of having moral obligations) that can be derived directly from atheism since moral obligations are not rationally supported by eliminative materialism.

 

[Al_Moritz]

To anticipate a reply that this amounts to a claim that atheists cannot be moral, let me say that such a retort simply misses the point. Atheists CAN be moral, but there are no rational grounds for being moral (in the sense of having moral obligations) that can be derived directly from atheism since moral obligations are not rationally supported by eliminative materialism.

Exactly. A friend of mine is an atheist and a rather happy person – not a nihilist by any means as would conform to the usual caricature. He is also a very friendly person and lives by quite reasonable moral standards. Yet he says that while he is an atheist he is glad to live in a Christian society (or a society with Christian values, however you want to call it).

Nuff said. If you’re an atheist, moral value must come from outside your worldview.

 

[Hee_Zen]

It is you who are saying morality is contingent upon prevailing social structure, therefore it is you who cannot raise any objections to perceived moral failures at any time in the past because you claim those were only apparent failures from the false perspective of our prevailing social structure.

Since I am investigating YOUR claim about the alleged “absolute” morality, I am in the position to find out how can you reconcile the assumed “absolute morality” with the obvious changes in the moral fabric of the human societies during the ages. And all I can see is an attempt to wiggle out from giving a straight answer.

As to the lack of “moral outcry” over past actions, why would anyone spend a great deal of emotional distress over what has happened in the past over what nothing can be done to change?

Because YOU assert the existence of an unchanging, absolute morality. It is not the past actions which are under investigation here, it is the behavior of the church and the religious people.

Better to try to understand the real motives, compulsions, lack of moral fiber, what was missing, morally speaking, from their thought processes and try to not repeat their same mistakes.

Mistakes, indeed? Torturing and burning the heretics by the church, which is said to be guided by the “holy spirit”? Mistakes like slavery endorsed in the bible, the alleged unchanging word of God?

If “objective” is based upon changing and subjective emotions, then “objective” morality in the sense you mean entails nothing more than “hinged upon everchanging subjective standards.”

So you did not do your job, and did not investigate.

As such I will need to waste some time to enlighten you.

“Absolute” means an unchanging system, independent from the time, the location and the circumstances. If you subscribe to “absolute” morality, then an act will be considered “moral” no matter what the circumstances might be. If slavery is “immoral” today, then it was “immoral” in the biblical times, too.

“Relative” means that one must consider the time, the location and the circumstances of the act. The same act might be considered immoral in certain times, and perfectly moral in another one. Example: in the Victorian era cohabitation, giving birth outside wedlock were considered horribly “immoral”. Today only a handful of people consider it “immoral”, and no one else cares.

“Objective” means that it is independent from the whims of individuals. As such cohabitation is objectively right.

“Subjective” means that it is founded on the individual view of people.

You keep on mixing up these terms. Amazing that your brethren do not correct you. But maybe they don’t know any better either.

Of course all these things are morally reprehensible. So, what’'s your point again?

The point is that those actions were endorsed by the bible and the church - at those times. Of course the church today apologized for the past mistakes, (which commendable), but it does not detract from the fact that those actions were considered “moral” in THOSE times.

…your worldview includes an ‘objective morality’ that would have allowed the killing of the Jews under Hitler to be considered moral if it would have found general acceptance in German society. Now that is a worldview of horrors.

First of all, your statement needs correction. You left out the critical piece of “that would have allowed the killing of the Jews under Hitler to be considered moral BY THAT SOCIETY if it would have found general acceptance in German society”. Fortunately it did not happen, because most people were against it. Quite unlike the middle ages when the persecution of the Jews (the killers of Christ - according to the church) was an accepted “moral” behavior. So, as I said before, observe the beam in you own eye before you hasten to point out the mote in someone else’s.

 

[Al_Moritz]

First of all, your statement needs correction. You left out the critical piece of “that would have allowed the killing of the Jews under Hitler to be considered moral BY THAT SOCIETY if it would have found general acceptance in German society”. Fortunately it did not happen, because most people were against it.

But it would still have been ‘objective morality’ by your standards. No improvements here. Still the same horror of worldview.

Quite unlike the middle ages when the persecution of the Jews (the killers of Christ - according to the church) was an accepted “moral” behavior.

…BY THAT SOCIETY (as you should have added given your own prior words, see above) – which means also this might have fitted your standard of ‘objective morality’. At least be consistent please. But obviously, as has been observed here many times, not just by me, consistency is not your strong suit. Or at least, you apply it only when it suits your purposes.

And yes, it was still morally dead wrong.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Quite unlike the middle ages when the persecution of the Jews (the killers of Christ - according to the church) was an accepted “moral” behavior.

I have never understood the logic of anti-semitism on ‘religious’ grounds. While morally reprehensible, it is also the dumbest thing ever: Jesus is a Jew himself. Duh.

 

[Al_Moritz]

First of all, your statement needs correction. You left out the critical piece of “that would have allowed the killing of the Jews under Hitler to be considered moral BY THAT SOCIETY if it would have found general acceptance in German society”. Fortunately it did not happen, because most people were against it. Quite unlike the middle ages when the persecution of the Jews (the killers of Christ - according to the church) was an accepted “moral” behavior.

But in both cases it would still have been ‘objective morality’ by your standards. No improvements here. Still the same horror of worldview.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The point is that those actions were endorsed by the bible and the church - at those times. Of course the church today apologized for the past mistakes, (which commendable), but it does not detract from the fact that those actions were considered “moral” in THOSE times.

First of all, your statement needs correction. You left out the critical piece of “that would have allowed the killing of the Jews under Hitler to be considered moral BY THAT SOCIETY if it would have found general acceptance in German society”. Fortunately it did not happen, because most people were against it. Quite unlike the middle ages when the persecution of the Jews (the killers of Christ - according to the church) was an accepted “moral” behavior.

I am confused as to your point here. You claim, firstly, that if killing Jews under Hitler would have been considered moral BY THAT SOCIETY it WOULD have been considered moral and you have no problem with that from your moral perspective because you claim that IS what MORAL means, by your definition.

Then, you turn around and criticize the morality of medieval Christians for persecuting the Jews. Yet, if what they were doing was widely accepted, on what grounds are YOU criticizing them? They were acting impeccably “moral” according to your very definition of what morality means. What is your issue, then?

For me the issue is that you are not being logically consistent with your own moral view. It is difficult to carry on a philosophical dialogue with someone who radically shifts their point of view merely to score points.

You take great pains to define what you mean by moral and then turn around and criticize a society and a time for doing the “moral” thing by your very own definition.

So, as I said before, observe the beam in you own eye before you hasten to point out the mote in someone else’s.

What beam? What mote?

In current society, relativism is the dominant moral system. That would mean, by your definition, in this age there is no moral view. There are no definable motes and no definable beams according to your moral view.

You have nothing to complain about.

Everyone is “free” to have their own opinions in a moral age that espouses moral relativism, no? Why are you being so critical about the inconsistencies of others when you, yourself, claim those inconsistencies are merely part of the moral landscape?

It is you, then, who are being inconsistent by arbitrarily criticizing the morality of others when they were being moral by your very definition of what it means to be moral.

On the other hand, anyone who claims morality has absolute grounds has warrant for being critical of moral lapses, including our own.

It is entirely consistent with my moral view for me to be critical of past moral behaviour and even critical of my own inmoral behaviour because I am not claiming that I define what is right and wrong, good or bad. That standard exists outside of me, you see.

It would be consistent for me to say, “Well I messed up big time yesterday AND so did you.” I can even, quite consistently, claim I (or you) are being a hypocrite and I (or you) should take the beam out of my (or your) eye before I (or you) tell anyone else to take the mote from theirs.

All of those things are quite consistent for me to do (and here comes the key point) BECAUSE I subscribe to an absolute moral ground for morality.

You, on the other hand, have no ground for making moral claims beyond what your current society tells you to do, so you can say nothing critical of societies in other times and places (based upon your own definition of what morality is) that exist outside of the majority view of your society.

Assuming you live in a modern western secular society and subscribe to its morality, that society is very likely to be relativistic, ergo your own society tells you that you have no grounds whatsoever for criticizing other times and cultures since morality - for you and the society you belong to - is merely what is believed in any particular time and place.

This is what it means to be consistent with the logical implications of your own position.

Now, if you decide to subscribe to an absolute moral system and on that basis lodge a legitimate critique of the morality of other times and cultures, I’d be happy to dialogue or debate your concerns.

As it is, however, you are just talking out of both sides of your mouth claiming to be right both ways because you have your behind solidly wedged on both sides of the fence.

 

[Al_Moritz]

The problem with your ‘objective morality’, Hee Zen, is that it is still based on collective subjectivism. There is no moral standard, which then allows for what even you would consider moral horrors – and it would still be ‘moral’. Truly a worldview that entails horrors.

---

Great post #495, Peter.

 

[Peter_Plato]

First of all, your statement needs correction. You left out the critical piece of “that would have allowed the killing of the Jews under Hitler to be considered moral BY THAT SOCIETY if it would have found general acceptance in German society”.

The problem here is that it is YOU who are claiming that killing of Jews by Nazis would have been morally licit if the majority of Germans had considered it moral.

It is not as if the Germans are proposing that view of morality, it is YOU who are.

You are claiming it would be moral in that case, so it is you who are claiming it would be moral for Germans to kill Jews if the majority accepted it.

There is no escaping this. That is the moral view YOU are proposing.