It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness
a reply to: Greggers
Self importance; yes humans are greatest slice of turd making the absolute; the most complex piece of crap in the entire all of everything in the entropy that never ends.
Enjoy the hell of your grasping of attachments and infinite conflagerations created by everyone NOT you... there's not truth in them nor will there ever be.
originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness
world hunger and homelessness could be ended tomorrow but it won't happen.
Otherwise our existence as a species is worthless...
The worst condition of humanity; is EXACTLY how to judge humanity.
originally posted by: Greggers
originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness
world hunger and homelessness could be ended tomorrow but it won't happen.
Sounds like you're making a moral judgment to me.
Otherwise our existence as a species is worthless...
So unless we end world hunger and homelessness, our existence as a species is meaningless? Congratulations, you've just judged the entirety of humanity based upon your own moral compass.
The worst condition of humanity; is EXACTLY how to judge humanity.
Huh.. it must be a contagious condition.
Not a damned thing other than the topic itself; because you set up senarios in a beg to question of seemingly unwinnable circumstances no matter the position to only suit your position...
I instead spoke to the topic and what actually occurs in action; on the whole from the practice... situational dilemmas aside... which make for splitting hairs.
If you want to live in an authoritarian world of dictation and control? Embrace morality to one's hearts content... better have been born a machine in such circumstances, because that's what it turns into over time a mechanical society... despite the lie that it is for a greater good... the idea of a greater good is an ideology that makes all atrocity sanctioned.
A Pope sanctioned or basically legalized slavery; which is how it ended up in the "new world" to begin with for the greater moral good then King George and his rainbow cabinet basically legalized murder for the greater moral good. Expansion and genocide has always carried self appointed sanctions as a greater moral good.
Morals is a high horse that only wishes to reign and the only thing it seeks is control... there's nothing good in it; that's just the excuse that allows or sanctions for such things they want to do anyway. Our made up blah blah gives us the authority to do blah blah to you because you don't believe in the same made up blah blah won't fall down worship or bend a knee to made up blah blah won't accept our made up blah blah as an authority over you.
First, I don't think you understand what moral relativism is.
Moral relativism is the only type of morality that has ever existed, or that will ever exist. It is the only type of morality humans are capable of. Even those who rely on an ancient holy book to dictate their morality will note that different eras have drawn wildly different conclusions about the morality of certain acts -- the book doesn't change, but interpretations do.
Strictly speaking, human morality has its origins in evolutionary biology. This can be seen in research done on the morality of great apes (yes, such a thing exists) as they exhibit many of the tendencies of man.
Human beings rely on others for their survival. As such, behaviors which threaten the group will tend to be treated as immoral, while those that strengthen the group will tend to be treated as moral. The closer a behavior comes to being a universal threat to society, the closer it comes to being an ABSOLUTE moral.
For example, the murder of an innocent within our own group is probably the closest thing humans have to a universal moral negative.
What Hitler did is morally wrong by any definition.
When a moral relativist says Hitler was evil, he's not saying, "I don't like Hitler." He's saying Hitler is an evil bastard. He's merely acknowledging the universal reality that morality is always weighed against the era.
originally posted by: JoshuaCox
originally posted by: Greggers
originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness
world hunger and homelessness could be ended tomorrow but it won't happen.
Sounds like you're making a moral judgment to me.
Otherwise our existence as a species is worthless...
So unless we end world hunger and homelessness, our existence as a species is meaningless? Congratulations, you've just judged the entirety of humanity based upon your own moral compass.
The worst condition of humanity; is EXACTLY how to judge humanity.
Huh.. it must be a contagious condition.
I think he is right, you do have to judge things by their worst not their best.
Oh can you elaborate on my misunderstanding rather than just saying it
time. Simply asserting that there is only moral relativism isn't going to gain you much credit with me,
I would agree with you that as humans we have certain instincts that drive us, and I would even agree that we have a type of social instinct which makes us want to help others in the same way a chimp may try and help another chimp, but the odd thing about being human, as I can't speak about being chimp, is that we know what it is like to be prompted by instinct, whether it be sexual instinct, social instinct, or the instinct for food and water, but inside of ourselves we find a third thing, which in and of itself cannot be instincts ingrained thru evolution. Let us imagine for a moment that we hear loud noises and a man yelling for help. We may find inside of us two impulses, one to help the man due to our social instincts, and another run away due to the instinct of self-preservation, but you will also find that third thing that tells you that you ought to follow your social instincts to help the man, but this cannot itself be one of those instincts.
That is incorrect being unfair, immodest, or dishonorable are frowned upon through out all societies even ancient ones.
Not if moral relativism is the true nature of morality. If Hitler thought what he was doing was actually good then, by your view of morality it would be defined as good.
Considering the vast majority of Germany was behind Hitler, I'd say by your way of judging morality in the context of that society what they were doing was good.
I find it odd you try to tell me that I don't understand moral relativism and then come here and try to tell me that it doesn't reduce moral propositions to statements about your personal or societal preferences. If you are saying "Hitler is evil" you don't mean it the same way I would. I mean even if the whole world thought what Hitler was good myself included, it would still be the case that Hitler is evil. You, however, mean that in the context of your society Hitler is considered evil, so I suppose we could rephrase it to say "My society doesn't like Hitler, therefore I don't like Hitler." Either way its about nothing more the societal or individual preference, there is no way around that because that is what relativism is.
originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
a reply to: Bluesma
Oh? So you were in a country that valued unfairness and immodesty and loved traitors, honored cowards of battle. What an odd country where is it?
I like where you're trying to go with your informal proof, but this falls apart because you are asserting two things (P & Q) are empirically the same making it impossible to distinguish a difference.
Let's take something easy to understand like a contradiction. A contradiction is false. Therefore working off this precept that a contradiction isn't possible it should not be conceivable, like amorality having no difference from morality if moral skepticism is true, right?
Well I can say a seat is not a seat like Sartre did in Nausea and actually derive a meaning from this:
“I murmur: "It's a seat," a little like an exorcism. But the word stays on my lips: it refuses to go and put itself on the thing. It stays what it is, with its red plush, thousands of little red paws in the air, all still, little dead paws. This enormous belly turned upward, bleeding, inflated—bloated with all its dead paws, this belly floating in this car, in this grey sky, is not a seat. It could just as well be a dead donkey tossed about in the water, floating with the current, belly in the air in a great grey river, a river of floods; and I could be sitting on the donkey's belly, my feet dangling in the clear water.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
a reply to: JoshuaCox
I think it is all based on relative POV.. Take for example ; "Slavery and slave holders are evil." But everyone's ancestors were slave holders..everyone. So were everyone's ancestors evil?! Through the lenses of the better understanding of modern society, yes all our ancestors were evil. But from their own POV ..not so much.
I am not sure how you think this response shows morality to be relative nor am I sure you completely understand the concept of a moral fact. A moral fact is talking about a indicative moral proposition, or in other words a statement that is true or false independent of your perspective. If our ancestors thought is was morally good to own slaves, then they were mistaken. The very fact that the vast majority of people would call the abolishment of slavery moral progress, but how can something progress if there isn't some outside reference point to which it is progressing towards? I gave you an entire post about why morals are objective and I get maybe five simple assertions with no explanation ? Why quote the whole OP?