Platonic. Or Kantian, what philosophers call deontology. Principles true in themselves which need no justification.
Moral relativism
- Thread starter Hume
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No. Persons are part of the group. It is the same.
Torturing babies or burning children alive is absolutely and objectively wrong.
Because you say so?
Because it's imprinted on the moral conscience.
Even when the Cannanites ritually burned babies alive to their pagan gods, they played drums so they wouldn't have to hear the screams.
What is this "moral conscience" and how does it get imprinted?
It's imprinted on the human mind.
Nobody knows why humans, and possibly a few of the higher sentient animals, have a moral conscience in a way that other life forms don't.
Easy. To have a peaceful, productive society.
ZenMode
Well-known member
Justification is the impact of actions, like FGM, on the person. That is what makes something immoral. It's the basis for making slavery, rape, child abuse, etc illegal - it's immoral because of what the action does the the victim.
Which is compatible with moral relativism.
Nope. That's not an explanation.
Under scientific Darwinian evolution, rendering assistance and sacrificing your resources to aid strangers and rivals outside your kin group, tribe, or pack is a waste of time. You never see lions bringing meat charitably to a rival pride. The only thing that matters in Darwinian evolution is the protection and propagation of the genetic information of you and your kin group.
When Oskar Schindler decided to risk his money and his life to save thousands of strangers, he was not thinking about how to make a 'productive society'. He was thinking about the absolute evil he was witnessing and felt compelled to do something.
It is an explanation. You just do not agree.
Which has nothing to do with my explanation.
ZenMode
Well-known member
No, moral relativism ignores that actual impact on the victim. So, no matter how horrible, painful, mentally destructive an act is, you can label it as 'moral' if enough people say it's ok.
So, "moral" has no true meaning to you and most leftists.
There is no scientific basis for that explanation. It's just vague conjecture.
Fifty thousand years of human violence, warfare, greed, chaos, strife defy your claim that humans somehow just naturally cooperate for the preservation of peaceful productive societies.
I do not use the word moral because you absolutists use it to mean a universal code everyone agrees on.
I would only use "ethical."
It is probably the most widely held idea in philosophical ethics.
Yet it is true.
You desperately and dishonestly try to assign views that I have not expressed.
Kant is the father of Rationalism. Bentham was behind Utilitarianism. Kant did not promote the concept of seeking "happiness and pleasure."
In many ways, Kant with an emphasis on autonomy, individual responsibility, and rational consequence is in line with my libertarian views. Where the view of Bentham that people are of value based on their utility to society (or the state) in creating comfort and happiness, are more in line with your Marxian views.
You are the only person who said that.
Many say Descartes is the father of modern philosophy.