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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (4396)	2/2/2001 12:18:57 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

In your defense, I had a Philosophy instructor in college who argued that there was an absolute morality (or extrinsic set of moral principles, if you will). 20 years later, he is still wrong <VBG>. In that class, I said if an alien race came and watched us through a telescope, they could deduce no such extrinsic morality from our intrinsic behavior. What they would see is highly inconsistent dealings in social settings. There are things that some people think are immoral even if no one else is involved (like masturbation). To me, I don't see how anything can be immoral if you doing it by yourself and it impacts no one else. Even the alien race could not observe us objectively, however. My argument is that no matter how remotely you view Earth, the observer is always using THEIR frame of reference. Even if you would call that frame of reference "GOD", I could argue that God could have a bigger God that is outside of Him and he'd have now way of knowing it. Therefore, His absolutes are just relative to His Heavenly frame of reference. This logical problem of where you set your anchor seemed to me an obvious refutation of the principle of extrinsic truth and morality because this assertion implies walls that we have no reason to believe exist except in our minds.