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

To: one_less who wrote (70842)	7/22/2003 5:47:00 AM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

"Any opinion is just that and not absolute The only difference between a moral principle and an Absolute moral principle would be the modifier. So if an Absolute Moral Principle is not an opinion, then neither is a moral principle an opinion. And that, of course, is patently absurd. Why you would say that the principle is Absolute but that the opinion which embodies and defines the principle is not?...that is a puzzle yet to be answered. "The rest of that post seems to be some back peddling on your earlier statements about "moral truisms."" There was no back peddling. You are simply trying to poison the well. You know very well I simply corrected your rather brazen and somewhat blameworthy failure to comprehend. "Even Kholt and Neo have cautioned my about being overly optimistic." Then please permit me to add a similar caution: please do not be overly optimistic as to the likelihood that misstatement of facts will lend credence to argument. ___________________ Humans have learned through living together in cooperative survival for a million years to develop many languages to communicate the relationships which represent what they have learned. For instance, after gaining rudimentary knowledge of planting and storing harvest for future food, the concept of property rights followed quickly as thrifty families and then groups of families protected their produce from those who had not contributed to the property. As well, people refined their instincts and biological drives and formed more subtle conceptions of their values. The biological instinct of protectiveness to offspring lends itself over countless centuries to concepts such as loyalty and faithfulness. These words are not principles; they are words which describe attributes. A principle is a rule. A moral principle is a rule for conduct. Now just because people have been able to build languages in order to name the natural objects in their world as well as the thoughts and feelings they experience has nothing at all to say about the possibility of an Absolute ground. Yes, we have definitions for justice, charity, etc., but our concepts are not "Moral Absolutes". Word definitions are not "Moral Absolutes". You need to escape this quicksand you are floundering in. Moral principles are principles of right and wrong behaviour. They are guides to conduct and action, and relations between people. Over the centuries some have expressed the belief that these principles of conduct are perfectly existing as part of the unconditioned nature of a Creator. They have attempted to justify such an inference by searching for codes of conduct common to all people. This would not prove a "Moral Absolute", but it would lend credibility to the possibility. Needless to repeat, anthropologists have found quite the opposite to be true as regards human opinions of right and wrong conduct. The fact that animals use language to express the nature of their "thoughts" and "feelings" (aggression, mating urges, playfulness, etc.) and the fact that humans use language to describe their thoughts and feelings (hatred, affection, protectiveness, loyalty, greed, etc.)...simply reveal how language reflects on the ability to conceptualize and represent relations. It has not one whit to do with the question of Absolute Morality--principles of conduct which exist apart from the subjective and the personal. By defining Absolute Morality as "principles of conduct which are Absolute", I do not define it into actual existence. I can give it abstract definitional existence, to wit: "principles of conduct which exist apart from the subjective and the personal", but my ability to define is not accompanied by an ability to create the thing. I cannot do so and neither can you. Nor do you discover virtues such as charity or justice to be Absolute virtues simply because you define them as good or Absolutely good. You can no more define these things into existence than you can define a light bulb with 821 teeth and a left ventricle into existence. If you continue to confuse virtues and vices with moral principles, and worse...to confuse the definitions and the characteristics of these virtues and vices with moral principles...then I see no hope for a reasonable discussion.