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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank
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To: one_less who wrote (70628)6/30/2003 7:00:32 PM
From: Solon  Read Replies (2) of 82486
 
SI went down and I lost my response in the mix-up. So here is a truncated version:

"There are several unknowns that would actually be known by the actor in the situation that you describe"

There are not any unknowns or I would have supplied them. However feel free to add 27 or 379 or 562 "unknowns"--whatever number helps you to make a decision.

"In addition to that there are several moral principles, not one, involved in the decision making process you describe. When making such a decision the actor would be using them as a reference not as a guarantee of right conduct."

What is the "moral principle" that tells you what to do without it being a subjective opinionated judgment. And how do you know about this principle?

"Also, you are confusing the desire to identify or clarify values and value judgements, which are impacted by societal experience, with moral absolutes which are not."

Don't let me confuse the issue. A moral absolute is a principle. What principle will guide you in this decision? If the decision of life and death is NOT a MORAL decision, then I certainly don't know what is. It does not get much more "moral" than that. If you do not have a moral principle for a penultimate moral matter...then how does it even matter?

"Were I in that situation, having a richer knowledge of my circumstances, I would make my decision based on my own self interests (in my case that would be preservation of my soul, where as in other people's cases that might mean something else"

So you are either agreeing that the principle of the "good" means acting on self interest (which is relative) or you are asserting that YOUR self interest is the cosmic principle. So what could you do in the example given that both of us could agree on as an absolute principle uncontaminated by our opinions and feelings?? (I'm the guy in the Holy Robes). And how would you convince me that your opinion represented an absolute principle??
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