Absolute Morality

I've come to realize something about absolute morality.

Moral Absolutism is the ethical belief that there are absolute standards against which moral questions can be judged, and that certain actions are right or wrong, regardless of the context of the act. Thus, actions are inherently moral or immoral, regardless of the beliefs and goals of the individual, society or culture that engages in the actions. It holds that morals are inherent in the laws of the universe, the nature of humanity, the will of God or some other fundamental source.

But I will always vehemently disagree with this definition.

Absolute morality is just an excuse to establish a tyranny. It takes on many different forms, but all who practive it have no problems using it as an excuse to hurt people.

So I've come up with a new saying about it.

The say absolute power corrupts absolute;y.

Absolute morality is about giving people power to control other people.

So absolute morality corrupts absolutely.

Think about it.

 

There is absolute morality, whether you want to be restrained by it or not. And for a society to see murder as an absolutely immoral act, doesn't corrupt anything, and it certainly doesn't corrupt absolutely.

Some acts that directly hurt another person are absolutely immoral. Murder and rape comes to mind. Morality is concerned about behavior that harms others, and the man who says murder or rape should not be an absolute, is suffering from incoherence.

You don't seem to want a society to control or address those horrible acts that greatly harm others, for you see any control as BAD. That sounds like the mutterings of a sociopath.

Now it would be nice if we all treated others as we want to be treated but that is not the fact of reality. And until it becomes a fact, we have to have moral absolutes, for we are little more than brutal chimps, but even worse than a group of monkeys.

 

If there is such a thing as absolute morality, then why do so many moral absolutists fight amongst themselves over and can not agree on what it is?

It's not about morality.

it's always about power and control.

Absolute morality is just an excuse for power and control.

 

We have been known to disagree. but I am with you on this. Belief in a not-to-be-questioned absolute leads to the conviction that the believer has the right to impose his beliefs on others,

 

So what's the corruption in making it illegal to have sex with a minor?

 

Obviously the idea can be twisted to serve that purpose, but that is not a necessary result - which cannot be said for moral subjectivism.

Moral subjectivism is at least as effective in achieving that end, because it gives license to the indulgence of base passions, through which the indulger can be easily controlled.

 

So, you don't accept the rule of law, where legislated law determines justice as opposed to a king, and applies equally to all, as a legitimate absolute moral principle?

How about the right of individuals to determine their own lives and enjoy the fruits of their own labors and choices other than with respect to limited, enumerated, necessary government power? Not absolute?

 

The above is a cop-out. It confuses not believing in an ABSOLUTE morality with lack of ANY morality. This is an excellent example of the excuse mentioned above to impose on others. It, rather than disbelief in absolutes, is an example of sociopathic thought, the belief that I HAVE THE ONLY TRUTH AND THE RIGHT TO FORCE IT ON OTHERS! I HAVE RIGHTS! NO ONE ELSE DOES!

As for Chimps/Bonobos and monkeys, read some of de Waal's works. Compare the behavior of our sardonic primate cousins with that of many humans during my lifetime (the last 70 years), humans who thought they had such an absolute that they were gods.

 

power and control.

And going by labels, the label of age.

 

So your solution is just do away with it and not have ANY limits?

Honest question here, not trying to bait you into an argument. Your comment seems to delve into almost anarchy as a solution. That's why I'm asking.

 

The difference is this.

The first is consent to be governed. Absolute morality does not care about consent to be governed. It's you obey or be stomped.

The second is not absolute morality. Absolute morality is conformity. and forcing conformity on to people. Allowing people to have their own lives is not conformity.

 

No, I am not an anarchist. I do want some regulation and protections, but too much regulation and rules is just another form of tyranny.

In an anarchist system only the people with the most powerful guns survive, and I don't want that kind of system.

In short I'm for a system with a small unobtrusive government..

Freedom is not free.

And my post was not about government in action, on morality and the effects it has on people.

You see, all atrocities in the entire history of the human race are done because the people who are committing the atrocity are doing it because they think it is the right thing to do at the time.

 

If morality isn't absolute, at least in the sense of being unalterable by any human contrivance, it isn't morality at all.

 

I don't necessarily disagree with you, however, there are obvious varying degrees on where to start. What is a valid regulation, etc.

You can get 40 people into a room and most likely get 40 people saying different things.

The most difficult of course is when people start talking about morality. Morality is quite subjective.

 

Yeah, that's where i get into trouble is finding a good balance and where to start.

 

Is tyranny absolutely immoral?

 

Now there's a play on words for you.

All tyranny is based on imposing morality.

 

Interesting that someone who seems to dislike moral absolutism has open support for the Constitution in their signature. The constitution is a document that imposes a specific code of conduct upon all who follow. It was written in a given time without the ability to anticipate the future. This post is hypocrisy. Everyone believes in something absolute. Even if that absolute is that there are no moral absolutes. It is logically self-defeating.

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But if there is no absolute morality, why is imposing morality inherently bad? That's the question you can't answer.

 

Because it hurts people who don't deserve it.

Many cultures have been nearly wiped out or completely destroyed because of the imposition of morality, as one example.

Slavery is the imposition of morality.

Genocide is the imposition of morality.

War is the imposition of morality.

The Rape of Nanking, The Trail of Tears, Wounded knee, The Israeli Conflict. Holocaust denial. Eroding of the constitution. The Vietnam War. Nuclear weapons and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Blitz. Imperialism, british and now American cultural imperialism.


all of these are happening because some people believe it is the right thing to do. And in doing this, they are hurting people.

 

Hurting people is only wrong if an absolute moral code that condemns such behavior exists. Otherwise hurting people is just hurting people which would be good or bad depending on the utility of doing it. Hurting people is bad because of an absolutistic moral code.

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seperately, you are cracked if youre putting eroding the constitution on that list. Hahah good one.

 

Years ago the I.R.A. bombed a shopping mall during Christmas. Their intent was to kill innocent women and children. A friend of mine said, "Maybe they went to far but...." I cut in and said, "No, no but. Some things are wrong. That's one."

Years later a man I worked with said, "Ted Kazinski should have sent the letter bombs but...." Again, I said, "No, there is no but. He shouldn't have sent the letter bombs, period."

Some things are flat wrong and people who are all about power and domination see the discussion only in those terms. Creating babies so they can be killed for spare parts would be, in my opinion, wrong, period. Allowing husbands to simply kill their wives instead of getting divorces would be wrong, period. Women today can kill their husbands in lieu of divorcing and usually get off or get probation. I think that's wrong, too.

Some things are wrong. I hate to say it but killing Democrats is wrong. Sure, it might be good for the gene pool and would certainly be good for the country but, sorry, it's just not the right thing to do.

 

Absolute morality would need to flow from a higher power but ideally the one who created the world, which is why gods were invented. But since there are no gods outside of the imaginations of humanity, there is no actual absolute morality. What people don't realize is that when man invented God and attributed to him/her/it/them this absolute morality, they were simply slapping a different name on human morality. It's source is still the same. It's still the arbitrary morality of whomever is in control of that religion's message and direction. And without gods and religions, the concept of absolute morality becomes even more shaky. At best, human beings can sometimes manage a consensus of morality, where enough folks believe the same things for that to be the way things are, at least in the parts of the world under the influence of that particular society(s). We could all pretty much agree that child molestation or rape or murder are wrong and immoral, but is that enough to make it absolute?

 

Murder is a seemingly simple example of an absolute but is it? Did the police that just shot an unarmed naked black man commit murder? If you were the family of the black man, yes. When an operator of a drone decides to hit a target and hits a wedding party instead, is it murder? The family thinks so. If a nation carpet bombs civilians, is this murder? When we think of murder most of us think about Manson or Gacy which is the easy test. It is much more difficult in other tests. That is why it is very, very difficult to come up with absolutes, there are always caveats. The list of caveats is almost endless too. So, the common perception is thou shall not kill. We kill people all the time via the state.

 

Crazy coincidence, I was reading an article on this a minute ago.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opi...en-dont-think-there-are-moral-facts/?referrer

I disagree with the article. I think they're confusing the need for moral convictions with some concept of moral facts.

 

You must not care for the Constitution then since you seem to think that ignoring it is a good thing.

Because the people who are eroding it think they're doing the right thing,

And in the end will end up hurting a lot more people.

All utopias are built on the backs of the disenfranchised.

That's the dark side to establishing a utopia.

And the people who are bypassing the Constitution want to establish their utopia.