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Subject: 
Re: Moral or Immoral (was Re: Cuba)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Mon, 3 Sep 2001 12:29:04 GMT
Viewed: 
560 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Carl Watson writes:
That makes capitalism moral and communism immoral. That's a good enough
argument right there.
[snipped]

I'm not just picking on Larry here, but I think this is a good time to ask:
Moral or immoral according to who?

The speaker/writer.

An action is moral to the extent that it satisfies one's sense of aesthetic
about how the world should work.  So charging interest on a loan is moral to
the capitalist who believes that this fuels the economy making greater
potential available to all and simultaneously immoral to the socialist who
believes that all interest is taking advantage of advantage and using that
corrupt tool to keep those with less in poverty.

This is an excerpt from something that is stuck on my fridge:

'The manner in which we think is governed by our attitudes, our beliefs &
our values. These are the product of our lives and what our cultural &
social upbringing has taught us." -author unknown

So with this in mind, which of these are moral & which immoral?
* Living in luxury while others live/die in poverty.
* Governments taking peoples possesions.
* Intervening in other countrys political systems (democratic or otherwise).
* Refusing the landing of asylum seekers.
* Standing by whilst genocide takes place in other countrys.
* Using the lives of innocent children for leverage/manipulation.
* Risking the lives of others for your own benefit (financial or otherwise).
* Women appearing in public with a man other than their husband.
* Homosexuality.
* Abortion.
* Pornography
* Experiments on animals.

All of them are.

How do we collectively decide what is moral or immoral?

I don't think that we really do.  Enough of us have enough in common that we
pass laws about consequences that certain behaviors will bear.  But I don't
think that we really decide in any collective sense what is moral.  My own
aesthetic is violated by our laws quite often.  And since I'm generaly in favor
of less regulation, my own sense of aesthetic favors a system that allows
people to violate my sense of aesthetic.

Chris



Message is in Reply To:
  Moral or Immoral (was Re: Cuba)
 
Larry Pieniazek <lpieniazek@mercator.com> wrote in message news:GIsxC4.C4A@lugnet.com... [snipped] (...) well (...) based (...) [snipped] I'm not just picking on Larry here, but I think this is a good time to ask: Moral or immoral according to who? (...) (23 years ago, 3-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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