Moral relativism

Yakuda said:
I get all that bit Im talking about the slavery we generally think of here in the US. The only question that matters in my discussion with Hume is, was slavery moral when it was legal?
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Rather depends on who you ask.

To Lincoln, it wasn't.
To the slave owner, it was.
To the slave trader, it was.
To several States, it was.
To other States, it wasn't.

The War of Secession was fought over this very question.
 
Into the Night said:
Rather depends on who you ask.

To Lincoln, it wasn't.
To the slave owner, it was.
To the slave trader, it was.
To several States, it was.
To other States, it wasn't.

The War of Secession was fought over this very question.
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Rather depends on who you ask.

To Lincoln, it wasn't.
To the slave owner, it was.
To the slave trader, it was.
To several States, it was.
To other States, it wasn't.

The War of Secession was fought over this very question.
 
Into the Night said:
There is no 'formal code' of morality.
It is not an abstract either.

You have morals. Trying to deny them is pointless, Hugo.
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There is no 'formal code' of morality.
It is not an abstract either.

You have morals. Trying to deny them is pointless, Hugo.
 
Into the Night said:
Your morals are not science or the brain.
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Anything that is moral or immoral applies to consciousness and the experience of the creature who has consciousness. Nobody cares, morally speaking, if you cut the clitoris off of a stone statue of a woman because the statue isn't conscious and can't experience the pain and terror of what is being done.

Without a brain, there is no consciousness and therefore no way to experience pain, trauma, harm, etc.

Again, science of the brain.
 
ZenMode said:
Anything that is moral or immoral applies to consciousness and the experience of the creature who has consciousness.
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Morals are not consciousness.
ZenMode said:
Nobody cares, morally speaking, if you cut the clitoris off of a stone statue of a woman because the statue isn't conscious and can't experience the pain and terror of what is being done.
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...your morals. You will find that others think such vandalism is immoral.
ZenMode said:
Without a brain, there is no consciousness and therefore no way to experience pain, trauma, harm, etc.
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How do you know?
ZenMode said:
Again, science of the brain.
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The brain is not science. It is an object.
 
Into the Night said:
Morals are not consciousness.

...your morals. You will find that others think such vandalism is immoral.

How do you know?

The brain is not science. It is an object.
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Morals are not consciousness.
ZenMode said:
Nobody cares, morally speaking, if you cut the clitoris off of a stone statue of a woman because the statue isn't conscious and can't experience the pain and terror of what is being done.
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...your morals. You will find that others think such vandalism is immoral.
ZenMode said:
Without a brain, there is no consciousness and therefore no way to experience pain, trauma, harm, etc.
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How do you know?
ZenMode said:
Again, science of the brain.
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The brain is not science. It is an object.
 
Yakuda said:
I get all that bit Im talking about the slavery we generally think of here in the US. The only question that matters in my discussion with Hume is, was slavery moral when it was legal?
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In the US slavery comes in several forms:

Indentured servitude. You trade your labor for X years in exchange for passage to the Americas, etc. That is a social and economic contract. Moral.

Transport. Here, those convicted of crimes are sent to penal colonies to work as slave labor. This was common at the time as a means of sentence of criminals. Moral.

Slavery itself. Slaves were often victims of war as prizes--you were enslaved because you lost. Yes, some slaves were simply taken to become one. A good number of American sailors ended up as slaves on the Barbary Coast from capture by pirates. I'd call this one a grey zone between moral and immoral.

Later there were sharecroppers. These are persons with limited means to do more complex work who took on work to pick cotton or other basic jobs in agriculture in return for a share of the crop delivered. They often made bad deals with their employers out of stupidity and ignorance. The idea is moral, but the execution can be immoral depending on the employer.

A semi-slavery is that of "Company towns." These were common in mining. The company would provide housing and goods at stores they ran. The employees could buy goods against their pay. Often, the employees were, once again, stupid and ignorant. They ran up large debts they couldn't pay off with the company. The result was until they paid what was owed, they were stuck working for the company.
The idea here is moral. The execution can be immoral if the company sets things up to take advantage of the worker's ignorance to trap them.
 
ZenMode said:
The question isn't about me or what I want done. The question is whether or not an act can be objectively/universally immoral.

If the harm is the basis for saying it's immoral, then it doesn't matter where it happens. It doesn't matter if it impacts me and it doesn't matter if I or anyone else wants something done about it.

The existence of harm, in all instances of the act, makes the act objectively and universally immoral.
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Yes they can. 100%
 
T. A. Gardner said:
In the US slavery comes in several forms:

Indentured servitude. You trade your labor for X years in exchange for passage to the Americas, etc. That is a social and economic contract. Moral.

Transport. Here, those convicted of crimes are sent to penal colonies to work as slave labor. This was common at the time as a means of sentence of criminals. Moral.

Slavery itself. Slaves were often victims of war as prizes--you were enslaved because you lost. Yes, some slaves were simply taken to become one. A good number of American sailors ended up as slaves on the Barbary Coast from capture by pirates. I'd call this one a grey zone between moral and immoral.

Later there were sharecroppers. These are persons with limited means to do more complex work who took on work to pick cotton or other basic jobs in agriculture in return for a share of the crop delivered. They often made bad deals with their employers out of stupidity and ignorance. The idea is moral, but the execution can be immoral depending on the employer.

A semi-slavery is that of "Company towns." These were common in mining. The company would provide housing and goods at stores they ran. The employees could buy goods against their pay. Often, the employees were, once again, stupid and ignorant. They ran up large debts they couldn't pay off with the company. The result was until they paid what was owed, they were stuck working for the company.
The idea here is moral. The execution can be immoral if the company sets things up to take advantage of the worker's ignorance to trap them.
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Minimum wage
 
Into the Night said:
Your morals are not science or the brain.
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Great, anyway, there are some things that are obviously immoral because of the harm that they do to people and that harm is based on the experience of the person and that experience is only possible because they are conscious.
 
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