Hah! That example was contempible. You cannot PROVE that morals are relative, whereas we can prove that the Moon is made of rock. That was dreadfully adolescent as well, trying to turn my words- well, actually Douglas Adams', and a shame because he was not a relatavist- against me, but you failed totally, making an ass of yourself in the bargain.
The fact is that this is a very complicated philosophical area, running from Aristoltle to Hulme to Kant to Rawls; our modern social structure in the West is founded on agreement with 20th century moral absolutists because their arguments were found to be convincing.
Whether you are trying to impress me or not is pretty much irrelevant. Yout hink it is a spade, but then religious zealots are convinced they are right about their God, and your blind faith in the relatavist concept is about as intelligent.
You are hiding behind a rock, a rock that enlightened thought moved on from a long time ago. Stay behind your primitive rock if you wish; it makes statement on your character.
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Last edited by Ushgarak on Jan 11th, 2007 at 11:06 PM
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Nah
Proof that there is God: None -> There is no God (your (Douglas Adams') reasoning)
Proof that there are absolute morals: None -> There are absolute morals (your reasoning)
Not at all! Douglas said- and he spells this out clearly- that the information we have acitvely displaces the role of God, that we have already explained the whole deal and God is not there, therefore God does not exist. it was NOT simply a matter that his existence could not be proven,. Douglas was a strong atheist- he didn't 'not believe in God', he believed there is no God.
A great shame you are misuing his words, because the situation is absolutely not the same as regards to morality.
A lot of Douglas' works were about absolute morals. He was always interested in the concept. He parodied oou philosophical search for that truth, making it a literal search, as if the rulebook could be found somewhere.
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The concept is interesting. It just lacks any existence. Or at least evidence of existence.
Can you explain to me how it could exist? That would almost be enough anyways. Even if we assumed there was a God, I still don't see a chance for there to be absolute morals.
Where do they come from?
Why are they absolute?
What are they?
How do we know that they are what you say they are?
Well, you do realise they are many questions relating to the basic scientific nature of the Universe that we cannot answer similar questions to yours to any satisfaction, even on basic points such as Gravity. Yet scientifically we can still observe its evidence and deduce its workings. Philosophical debates on the area of morals do the same for ethical areas. There have been many, many ideas about where it comes from- innate to all life, innate to Humans, innate to the nature of the Universe- that would take up many hundreds of pages to run through here.
"Why" are they absolute would be the easiest one to answer- because they apply independantly to the point of view of the person committing the action. Regardless of whether a person THINKS something is right or wrong, the action has a quality of rightness or wrongness independant of that point of view. That;'s why such a thing would be absolute.
What are they? if you ever meet a person claiming a definitve answer to that, that person is almost certainly religious. The whole area of absolutism is built around the nevber ending search to discern them.
As to how we KNOW... we don't. people just try their best. Again, that is why they are so debated. But our entire modern cultural structure is built upon the concept.
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To put it simply...if you consider The Death Penalty to be wrong and evil. Then by all means Hitler is beyond wrong and evil. Gas chambers and large furnaces...yep...he was evil.
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So, basically you believe in some mysterious rules that we can't quite explain where they come from, what they are, why they are important, why they are absolute, that we basically know nothing about?
Well, I dunno, I am not convinced. It...it just doesn't quite work out for me yet.
Dammit Ush, you're thinking these things out on exactly the same path as I do... most of the time, that is
And I agree entirely, It's not some 'powers that be' cripe, the point is that when people say that something is absolute, it's a matter of perspective: to be absolute, everyone must think the same way about it and we all know that's impossible.
It's just like physics, there are people who now claim that phsics is a law that we should no longer be adhered to merely because it was a theory... A damn good one, mind you but a theory none the less.
Same with any religion, belief faith and the general strength of it's presence is soley depentant upon the scale of those who believe.
My point is, I enjoy debates in these threads because I never run in and say "I HAVE TEH ANSWER!!!" ^.^ My views are not influenced by the general train of thought but I consider every point made by people who DON'T claim they know the answers to these things, especially for conspiracy sheite. I never contest it either, but I merely say on the fact of this Thread that Slaughtering Jews alone made Hitler Evil, nothing else he did could make up for that, now you may protest but That's my case and I'm sticking to it though I don't expect anyone to follow suit.
__________________ Mal: "Well, if anyone gets nosey... You know... Shoot em' "
It was a theory stared by an Irishman who claimed he had invented an engine that ran at 110% efficiency, completely blowing Physics and Thermodynamics out the window.
In history, all that is needed is for one person to contest that which is widely known and believed in to start a revolution, of sorts.
Many people now start to question the laws written however long ago, physics was put into the firing line recently as many people try to consider a world without it, the challenge set by the Irish inventor was that he would not reveal his invention until people can get a grasp of aspects not defined by physics. In my opinion, he didn't invent anything, he's trying to get people to be creative without the laws of physics... If such a thing is possible... I'm currently sitting on the fence at the moment
and the pointv about agreeing with Ush, as I pointed out, he thinks along a similar line to me, his points and ideas seem quite relative: Hence I agree, but that does not make it absolute, we're just two people afterall
__________________ Mal: "Well, if anyone gets nosey... You know... Shoot em' "
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Well, disregarding the off-topic stuff, though....interesting, I would say the way you talk you agree with my view that there are no absolute morals, but only those we chose...while you still say you agree with Ush.
To me, Hitler was "bad" (as in I don't like what he did), but if I claim he is evil I imply that it is an absolute truth which I can't know and don't believe. I don't see what these absolute morals should be. Why they should be the absolute morals. And where they come from.
Yet again, well made point... EVIL is an overused term, a bit to Old-world for modern terminology yet still widely used.
To say he was a bad man is probably more accurate, by calling him evil, all I can think about is a little spiked tail and a pair of little horns jutting out of his noggin
I would say that to be accurate, Hitler was widely accepted as a bad man becuase of the massacres, a point to which I agree, yet there are some good points about him, yet I won't go into it to avoid cannonizing the man accidentally...
__________________ Mal: "Well, if anyone gets nosey... You know... Shoot em' "
The problem with this phrase is that by all accounts a word game that many people like to play when they have no other reasoning to prove a point.
This same logic can be said on any subject matter for instance if someone goes up and says an orange is an aorange and apple is an apple by your account if someone was to say no and orange is an apple and an apple is an orange they would not be wrong why because it is all perspective but *** doesn't matter on the name. The apple whether it be called a potatoe is still a red round object grown on trees with a very defintive core.
You see what I'm getting at it doesn't matter how you word it whether you believe it or not the point is Hitler was amajor contrinuter to the loss of life. Call it whatever you will Murder, Killing, the means to an end unless you want to justify that the taking of a person's life energies is alright be my guest.
The fact is that life as a substance is looked favorably upon and the elimination of it is deemd wrong well if it is wrong it can't be right therefore it can't be good therefore it must be evil.
Unless you want to keep playing words games actually tell me why Murder of weak people is a good thing
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General question, what is up with all the absolutists and personal attacks? "Adolescent view", "Word game people like to play when they have no other reasoning". Anyways.
"The fact is that life as a substance is looked favorably upon and the elimination of it is deemd wrong well if it is wrong it can't be right therefore it can't be good therefore it must be evil."
That is subjectively. Not everyone views it that way. Just because the general consensus is that way doesn't make it absolute.
You guys are unable to provide any reasoning why absolute morals should exist. Also, you can't say what they are (my guess is, because they don't exist, but they might). You have nothing to base your arguments on. I on the other hand do not claim that something exists that we have zero evidence of, if that's a stupid and adolescent view...well, I don't know, I also don't believe in Santa, guess I must be a kid.
"Unless you want to keep playing words games actually tell me why Murder of weak people is a good thing"
I did not claim that, there is no evidence for it being good nor evil, so I just stay with the most reasonable, that does not require any further additions, it is neither. I don't make up a moral code, I don't know, but that's generally the scientific approach to things. You don't make things up that are unnecessary and lack any shred of evidence.
You know for someone who doesn't believe in absolutes you are stating that there can absolutely be no absolutes quite definitively.
But that isn't point even if you do not believe in absolutes there are still degrees
Your whole arguement on Hitler not being Evil is that you believe that Evil is an absolute term but then in that acse there can't be anythinggood in the world can there. There also can't be straving people or people you are full because in your defense you say that absolutes don't exist therefore everything must be on a middle ground but in the world this sin't case. Everyone isn't well off in money, everyone isn't in the same type of houseing, isn't stockpiled with food.
You see there are degrees in this world. One person can be more unwanted then the next person can be. Your getting cuaght up on terms and trying to prove termionology that you accept. You believe that Evil is an absolute but the fact is that anyone not evil must be bad but Evil is just another way of describing a bad person hence why it can be tossed around alot. Now yes generally Evil is used to the larger degree of bad people but to sat Evil is an absolute is simple your personal opinion and doesn't actually prove anything and the fact reamins that while your private defenintion is one thing its real world use is quite different.
So yes Hitler is bad/evil to a greater degree then alot of people you yourself have admitted this.
So in essence you agree with everyone here in that Hitler was not a nice person so why don't you stop trying to feed us your personal look on life
Not true, there can very well be absolutes. It's just impossible to prove them or to know them. Therefor the saying that there are no absolutes in ethic matters is far safer then saying there are.
There are degrees in personal opinions yes.
No absolute good no. Everything that you feel is good is good for you but can be bad for somebody else the world whatever.
Is starving an ethical question? An opinion? No, starving is defined as having to little food to survive and thus dying because of lack of food. That is an absolute, it also doesn't question an opinion. It has nothing to do with morales values or any other kind of ethical matter and are thus completely different things.
Bad and evil are both relative terms. However bad can be used to describe other things. Like saying somebody did something bad for the country or the majority of the people. That is not necessarily evil but definitely bad. Thus a huge difference. Defying evil as doing something bad can be done of course, but then that would require people to agree on what is bad or not.
And the only way to do that is to know what would have happened if the supposed bad things didn't happen. You don't know that, so you don't know the answer either.
So the opinions of the majority are all of a sudden absolute? Because I believe that the people in this world have a hell of a hard time agreeing on almost everything and the general opinion changes a lot. A hell of a lot. A few hundred years ago we had different morales and values then we have now, does that mean that the absolute idea's of good and evil have changed through time? If so then they are not absolutes at all now are they? They are just the opinions of the majority of the people you get into contact with.
If not then what makes you think we know better then the people back then did?
I can't speak for Bardock but in my personal opinion and likely his as well, Hitler was an evil son of a *****. Notice the word opinion.
Personal opinion is irrelevant when you ask for an absolute. Which on ethical matters can not be given.
Gender: Unspecified Location: With Cinderella and the 9 Dwarves
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Okay, I will try to go through this point for point. But only once.
Okay
SHOWTIME
You can do it Bardock
:
Nah, it may seem that way, but I accept the possibility of them. Though I can't in any way imagine how they could be. Kinda like with God, don't believe in him/her/it, but accept that it might exist.
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what
No, I happen to know that evil isused as an absolute term.
Also, there can be starving people, where did I deny that?
You are thinking that through with already accepting some things as "good" and others as "evil". Could you cut that out? Please.
There are people that starve, there are people that die, there are people that don't have homes. What does that say against my point that "there are no absolute morals"?
I don't say that there are bad people either. How could I judge that. There might be people that I find bad, but "bad people", nah.
And, no, you are trying to go all dictionary on me, but believe me...I looked it up. Not the first time I have to educate people about it (right, Ush?). Also not the first time I will fail (right, Ush?).
The number one thing humans pursue is happiness. You kill people, you end their chance to be happy for the rest of their life. That's bad. It follows that Hitler is bad.
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Jan 11th, 2007 11:04 PM
