Moral absolutes (page 2)

Elsewhere

Someone who harms you is "evil". Someone who helps you is "good".

Killing someone who is "good" is "evil"

Killing someone who is "evil" is good.

What is good and what is evil are determined by selfish precepts.

worldlygirl

I agree with unique1. Under what circumstances would the forcible rape of a small child by an adult be morally acceptable?

Skeptic

I don't believe in moral absolutes. Morality should depend on the circumstances and situation, including cultural considerations. There may be some moral absolutes , but chances are, there are not.

Jourles,

Typically though, someone's definition of right and wrong stems from their own life experiences and what they want to be right and wrong.

If you're looking for that universal absolute, you will have to wait until (God) appears and tells the world in person that such and such is unequivocally right or wrong and your idea of right and wrong is f**ked up. By then we will all be dead, so this issue will not matter to anyone of us anymore.

If "God" came and told us what was a universal absolute, then would it not just be what God wants to be right or wrong? Hence, the situation is no different than if a human decided morality.

Yerusalyim,

Do circumstances mitigate guilt? Not really, it's not less of a sin to murder someone because you want to steal his food, than it is to murder him to steal his money.

I heard of a case where a man kidnapped a very young boy and kept him as a sex slave for ten years before the boy was found again. The boy had been repeatedly raped and made to do all kinds of degrading things. The boy was messed in the head for life.

While the accused was being transported to trial, the father of the boy shot the accused. Cold-blooded premeditated murder. The father served or minimal jail time, as the court decided that circumstances did mitgate the man's guilt.

Even murder is not a moral absolute. I don't think many people would be outraged if Paul Bernardo or Karla H. were murdered. They slowly tortured two teenagers to death over a weekend.

I (and I think the bible) define murder as the intentional taking of INNOCENT human life.

I mean no offense when I say this, and I ask it only to make a point about moral absolutes. If memory serves me right, you have served in the military. (I consider military service to be a good thing, so I thank you.)

In a war, innocent lives are often lost. It is a cost of war. Let's face it, when you bomb a city, innocent civilians or children can and do get killed. If your definition is as above, then is that not murder?

Jourles

would the forcible rape of a small child by an adult be morally acceptable?

Ehh, good example, but there could be some people out there who feel that it would be ok. Define small child - 5 years old? 10 years old? If a person with Down syndrome felt compelled to engage a minor child in sex, would he be thinking about what is morally acceptable to society? Maybe the child is playing around with him and asks to see his wee-wee. Anything could happen in this situation. Do we generally punish these types of people with mental/psychological issues if what they do is wrong but they themselves truly do not know it to be wrong? Again, yes, we know it is wrong for it to happen, but the person doing it may not.

Yerusalyim

Jourles and Skeptic,

Note INTENTIONAL taking of INNOCENT human life. Were I as a soldier INTENTIONALLY trying to kill an innocent civilian it would be murder. Thanks goodness the US doesn't make it a habit of INTENTIONALLY targeting INNOCENT civilians.

Any RAPE is morally wrong...ALWAYS..sex with a child by an adult is always wrong. ok now we define "child" as in some states, with mom and dad's permission 14 year olds are getting married (usually to their cousin)

Yizuman

Of course there is Moral Absolutes, if there had been none, there would be no rule of Law, only chaos and mahem.

No woman would be safe from rape because man thinks it's ok to rape a woman simply because he doesn't believe in moral absolutes. (I'll do whatever I want, however I want and if you don't like it, tough!)

No one would be safe from anyone that would get pissed off if someone just looked at someone and pulls a gun to kill you just simply because he or she didn't like the way you looked at him/her. Especially not to have to answer to anyone except those that wants revenge.

There would be robberies, murdering, stealing, whatever comes to mind that is wrong....

Ok how would you feel if an old lady walked into a store, shoplifted something and got caught. Her excuse? She's hungry and she's on social security that doesn't pay enough to keep food in her belly, let alone pay rent and utilities. Would you let her go?

Yiz

Reborn2002

When I was taking a graduate-level ethics course at Governor's State University in University Park, Illinois in the Fall of 2000, this very topic came up.

Allow me to be clear.

There are no moral absolutes.

Moral absolutes only come into play when religion teaches people to do so. A fictional book, whether it be the Koran, the Bible, the Torah, etc. then proceeds to instruct people on what is or is not appropriate.

To illustrate, the Bible instructs that murder is wrong. Is it an absolute that this is intolerable under any circumstance? God then proceeds to send an angel to smite 185,000 people in one evening, or to cause a flood which eradicates the entire population of man on earth save one family. Does ANYONE see the hypocrisy present here when one gazes into religion?

As was taught me by my ethics professor, Dr. Hu (who was an atheist ironically) I believe in something called contextual ethics. A person must assess the unique circumstances of a specific situation to determine what is acceptable or not.

Are murder, lying, stealing, and violence unacceptable under any circumstance period, ever? After all, that is what an absolute is.

Is it acceptable to kill a person who breaks into your home and attempts to harm you, your wife, or your children? If this person is so hellbent on destruction that the only way to stop them is to take their life? Is it acceptable to steal a loaf of bread to feed a starving family? Is it acceptable to wage war on tyranny and kill soldiers solely following orders? Is it acceptable to lie if it saves someone's life (perhaps a soldier under interrogation) or prevents heartache (an elderly mother who is unaware of a son's transgressions perhaps)? Is it unacceptable to defend yourself (even if it means using punches and kicks, which are violence) if you are being attacked?

There are NO absolutes. Anyone who tells you otherwise is conceding to their religious convictions or self-perceived moral compass.

Jourles

If "God" came and told us what was a universal absolute, then would it not just be what God wants to be right or wrong? Hence, the situation is no different than if a human decided morality.

Skeptic, if God really did show up and everyone, I mean EVERYONE in the world had to recognize that he was indeed "God," that would prove that he was our "maker." If God has that ultimate power to create our lives and spawned the human race, then he does have the right to decide what is absolutely right and wrong. It wouldn't matter what our puny little minds thought.

Speaking from an agnostic point of view, this was merely an example. I do not consider arguing what God feels is right and wrong as we would have no clue and it would only be presumptuous of us to try and figure out what His moral absolutes are. Based on Old Testament examples alone, God's ideas of absolutes can be a little sketchy compared to NT ones.

drwtsn32

Aztec, I know we've discussed this a bit before... but I still cannot think of a reasonable defintion of rape that would make it not morally wrong. Rape is unwanted, forced sex. How is that ever right? What is the purpose of trying to come up with some weird definition of rape that makes it not 100% wrong?

I do agree though that there are very, very few moral absolutes. As we discussed before, murder isn't one. But I think sexual abuse of a child is always morally wrong too.

What do you think?

OrbitingTheSun

I agree that sexual abuse is wrong but no one has mentioned the cyclical nature of sexual abuse. An adult may initiate the cycle but the consequence is often children molesting other children. People don’t have a problem with executing adult sexual predators, but there are a number of child sexual predators who do the same exact things as adults. Are they guilty of the same moral offense?

Moral absolutes

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