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

To: Solon who wrote (33747)	10/17/2001 3:39:00 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I think the summary of your thoughts in this area was well stated, and it doesn't appear to contain any obvious internal inconsistencies. Some of the assumptions behind it I would disagree with but we have already been over all that territory before. The fallacy generally made in examining such reductio ad absurdum scenarios is in begging the question of absolute morality. I would think that any moral arguments based on absolute or relative morality would be begging the question of either absolute or relative morality. If your counterpart in the discussion agrees with you about morality being absolute or relative then this isn't an issue but obviously there will be times when there is no such agreement. However if we are discussing some moral issue but not directly discussing absolute vs. relative morality it might not be unreasonable for either of us to beg the question and assume either absolute or relative morality, with the understanding that the other person disagrees. The alternatives would seem to me to either to have no ethical discussions or to start from first principles in every time we discuss ethics. It is useful to understand the basic ideas behind our ethical views when we are debating ethical issues, but it would probably be to much effort to restate them every time we have a discussion of abortion, or just war theory, or any number of other issues which involve thoughts about ethics. Tim

To: Solon who wrote (33747)	10/18/2001 7:21:13 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Great post. I hope you have more luck arguing this case than I did... if you do, try persuading the Gregs <g> Sometimes, one hears an absolutist "argument" in a form such as this: but surely killing 6000 people in the WTC is evil. Who could disagree with this? Well, other than the fact that a whole bunch of bastards do because of their supernatural moral belief system, the point has nothing to do with addressing the question of absolute principles. The fact that most people can agree that a PARTICULAR instance of mass killing was either a "good" or a "bad" killing does not change the fact that killings can be either "good" or "bad", depending on the consensus interpretation of those making the interpretation based on their thoughts and feelings. Well stated... and I love the Shakespeare quote, which pretty aptly summarises the thrust of relativism versus 'absolute' moral principles in one elegant sentence... "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."