People will always have a desire for freedom and will want to experience a form of stimulation; thus, there will always be a market for drugs, despite attempts to control people's impulses and desire for freedom. Preventing drug usage is damn near impossible.
Replace the words 'freedom' and 'drugs' for rape, murder and abuse and see how far you get, becuase they are perfectly interchangable.
Originally posted by Eminence
I can't speak for the others, but I've taken a relativist stance here in opposition to DS because I don't follow the Bible or the Torah, which he has cited as establishing universal rights and wrongs; I don't follow Judaism or Christianity, so why should I be subject to their rules?
By your logic, you shouldn't. Then again, you live in a Judeo-Christian state which was founded on many of those principles so you can adapt, or you can leave.
Originally posted by Nephthys
A lot of drugs have been proven to be harmful to a person, both mentally and physically
...you're talking about tobacco and alcohol? Ups. Face it: Everyone that wants to argue against the legalization of drugs has to be either blind, or ignorant or dumb. Legal drugs kill thousands of people every single day. And you want to tell somebody that governments do forbid other drugs because those would harm people?
What a naive view on the world.
The same people that would get on the street driving a car while high, will now do the same while drunken. Some agressive drug addict searching for trouble will find it among completely drunken guys that a searching for trouble too. Where is the change that would appear when somebody legalized drugs? I don't see a difference between an alcoholic and a heroine addict. They both destroy themselves, they both could - potentially - be a danger for others.
And to come up with morality here, Nephthys, already represents a double-standard. A govenment can't claim the will to protect people from harmful substances while allowing them stuff that causes the very same effects like the drugs they want to keep away from their subjects (even if slower or not potentially less lethal). And believe me: When one government has figured out, how to make money from legalizing drugs, you will see it happen. The end justifies the means.
Originally posted by Eminence
I can't speak for the others, but I've taken a relativist stance here in opposition to DS because I don't follow the Bible or the Torah, which he has cited as establishing universal rights and wrongs; I don't follow Judaism or Christianity, so why should I be subject to their rules?
There's the crux of the problem.
If Darth Sexy implied or communicated to you that you should subscribe to the religion itself, he's irretrievably wrong. But the fact that you do not follow Judaism or Christianity doesn't mean that their "rules" are any less valid or nonapplicable. As I noted to Darth Sexy, the great religion of Christianity has conducted more than its fair share of wrongdoings. But that is also due to people interpreting these rules with zealotry and persecution.
Moral relativism, taken in its absolute sense, is stupid. For example, the common example of the justification of Hitler's actions. As a moral relativist, you either condemn those who argue his murder of millions of innocents or acknowledge that there's a possibility he was right.
To me, there is no credible argument to be made for that.
And to come up with morality here, Nephthys, already represents a double-standard. A govenment can't claim the will to protect people from harmful substances while allowing them stuff that causes the very same effects like the drugs they want to keep away from their subjects (even if slower or not potentially less lethal). And believe me: When one government has figured out, how to make money from legalizing drugs, you will see it happen. The end justifies the means.
And you assume that I'm okay with the current legal drugs like tobacco and alcohol, why? Ban both I say.
Originally posted by Borbarad
...you're talking about tobacco and alcohol? Ups. Face it: Everyone that wants to argue against the legalization of drugs has to be either blind, or ignorant or dumb. Legal drugs kill thousands of people every single day. And you want to tell somebody that governments do forbid other drugs because those would harm people?What a naive view on the world.
The same people that would get on the street driving a car while high, will now do the same while drunken. Some agressive drug addict searching for trouble will find it among completely drunken guys that a searching for trouble too. Where is the change that would appear when somebody legalized drugs? I don't see a difference between an alcoholic and a heroine addict. They both destroy themselves, they both could - potentially - be a danger for others.
And to come up with morality here, Nephthys, already represents a double-standard. A govenment can't claim the will to protect people from harmful substances while allowing them stuff that causes the very same effects like the drugs they want to keep away from their subjects (even if slower or not potentially less lethal). And believe me: When one government has figured out, how to make money from legalizing drugs, you will see it happen. The end justifies the means.
Originally posted by Gideon
There's the crux of the problem.If Darth Sexy implied or communicated to you that you should subscribe to the religion itself, he's irretrievably wrong. But the fact that you do not follow Judaism or Christianity doesn't mean that their "rules" are any less valid or nonapplicable. As I noted to Darth Sexy, the great religion of Christianity has conducted more than its fair share of wrongdoings. But that is also due to people interpreting these rules with zealotry and persecution.
Moral relativism, taken in its absolute sense, is stupid. For example, the common example of the justification of Hitler's actions. As a moral relativist, you either condemn those who argue his murder of millions of innocents or acknowledge that there's a possibility he was right.
To me, there is no credible argument to be made for that.
The idea of moral relativism is the fact that one can justify any action and then reply with "who are you to....".
Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
The idea of moral relativism is the fact that one can justify any action and then reply with "who are you to....".
Which does nothing but engender indecisiveness and make room for more morons in the world to get crazy ideas, believing they aren't subject to any authority.
The idea of moral relativism is the fact that one can justify any action and then reply with "who are you to....".
This doesn't make it wrong though, merely unpleasant. So far, the majority of argument's against MR amount to 'But that's eviiiiilll'. Mabye Hitler was right, but there is a 99.999999% chance that he wasn't.
Originally posted by Nephthys
This doesn't make it wrong though, merely unpleasant. So far, the majority of argument's against MR amount to 'But that's eviiiiilll'. Mabye Hitler was right, but there is a 99.999999% chance that he wasn't.
[Moral relativist] Who are you to conclude that he's random percentage right and random percentage wrong?
OMG. What is right and wrong? Do they even exist...?[/moral relativist]
That's the problem. Hitler was wrong. He had no logical basis for his actions. What he did was pick out the Communists and the Jews, to blame for post WWI economic collapse, and created a ridiculous justification for what he was about to do.
"Jews created the conscience. We must destroy the conscience. We must destroy the Jews".
[Moral relativist] Who are you to conclude that he's random percentage right and random percentage wrong?OMG. What is right and wrong? Do they even exist...?[/moral relativist]
I am me. That is all I need to be to know what is right or wrong, becuase clearly you do not know what a moral relativist really is. That being, the way that a MR sees right and wrong is through use of their logic and by analysing situations and actions to find the answer's to the moral question.
I made a decision based on my reason and existing set of morals upon the likelihood of Hitler being wrong, taking into account all I know about right and wrong etc. What I know about right and wrong I decided again through my reason and follow it as such, the way everyone else does. Like if Sexy used his reason to decide that the right thing to do is to follow the teachings of the Torah.
Hitler was wrong
Absolutes like 'wrong' do not exist, but it is safe to label Hitler as such becuase to the likely probability that he was.
Originally posted by Nephthys
Absolutes like 'wrong' do not exist, but it is safe to label Hitler as such becuase to the likely probability that he was.
[Moral relativist] Who are you to conclude that "wrong" doesn't exist? [/Moral relativist]
Edit: Not saying you are one, but just demonstrating the fallacy of an obsolete perspective.
By using my reason it is obvious that it is such considering that something being wrong cannot ever fully be proven. And since I don't need to prove a negative (wrong doesn't exist) , it is automatically the case.
exodus, if there are no absolute rights and wrongs, then you can justify any action.
So?
That doesn't make the theory wrong, just unpleasent. See above.
Besides, how can someone "probably" be something that "doesn't exist"?
Absolute rights and wrongs don't exist (in the moral sense), but degrees of logical R's and W's do.
EDIT: I need to go to bed now, partially becuase I need to a presentation on Omniscience (citing myself as an example (not Gideon (not even close))) and partially becuase my head is spinning from all this complex word mazery