On the other hand I like a government that prevents anyone's beliefs from infringing on the rights of others. Because I do not believe in any higher power keeping men from each other's throats- I like to see the state take an active interest in doing that
With all respect, X--that doesn't sound very relative to me. It is very precise, and it is what you apparently believe should be keeping men from each other's throats. In spite of your relative beliefs, you apparently hope that others share this moral imperative of yours. I suspect that it is so important to you, that you would advocate the use of force to implement it (I.E. Keep it on the law books). In the relative sense--I guess you would call your belief (just quoted)--good. So even though you don't believe in good and evil as emanating from supernatural sources...you appaer to act as though there are some conditions more desirable than others. I also presume that you support some type of State or Government intolerance against certain acts. We call it the Criminal Code, and it is based on a consensus against what some call evil, some call undesirable, call call wrong or immoral, and some may just call.
Most on this thread (I think) would probably agree with you that good and evil are experienced as relative. This is the only way Truth can ever be experienced so long as individuals are separate organisms, and we are not like bees.
Although you say they are relative, your statement of same shows me that you are still able to use the concepts, and that people do indeed have rather absolute rights that need protected. I think you and I have a pretty clear idea of what those rights are...
I would call (for instance) the right to existence without State interference, or interference from others, provided one does nothing to infringe or intrude upon that same right of others, to be an absolute philosophical good based upon the Nature of a human being. There is a mathematical and logical structure of Truth that allows us to have these debates and to send people to the moon, and to die for certain causes and rights...
Even the religious folk on this thread express a relative sense of good/evil (my sect/your sect/my rules/your rules), etc. Provided you and I share that concept of the rights of others, which you mentioned, we will be tolerant of those differences, at least. I guess it is for those that don't share that concept, that some bear arms in their home.
Being tolerant, of course, does not mean agreement, nor does it mean that all of us cannot express personality in our own individual ways. You can walk all over my beliefs, and argue that I am an idiot and a fool, too :)
I would fight for your right to do so.
Finally, we must be careful how that relativeness of good gets expressed in social law. You really don't want people making those decisions on an intrapsychic level without some protective framework of morality that will safeguard your children and everyone else. Of course, you stated this same thing in different words.
Truth and Good are always experienced and conceptualized in relative terms. We are all individuals. If there is an Ultimate form of existence, and if we could experience that, then, I guess our experience of good would no longer be subjective. In the meantime, Reality IS; Truth (the expression of reality) IS. Some could define Good as that which approaches Truth, and Evil as that which approaches the false. Once Good and Evil are defined in absolute epistemological terms, they could then be guaged and measured by logical rules. Until then, it is subjective and relative...at least for all practical purposes. |
