Subject:
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Re: Essay on Emerson vs. Thoreau; civil disobedience
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 31 Jan 2001 18:03:16 GMT
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Viewed:
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330 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, James Brown writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton writes: • <snip>
> > > Not necessarily that it's EVER actually BEEN
> > > ok, but that the possibility exists. And just to clarify further, by my
> > > morality, it can be ok for one person to enslave another, and it's also
> > > still perfectly ok if that other believes that his/her slavery is immoral.
> >
> > I am having a lot of trouble with this notion. It smacks of might makes right.
>
> It could be twisted into meaning that, I suppose, but just about anything
> can be twisted around until it supports a 'might makes right' mindset.
>
> It boils down to relative morality. When David talks about someone acting
> morally (or immorally), he is making that call in relation to their own
> moral code. If someone has no moral objection to keeping slaves, they are
> moral to do so; by the same lights, if someone has a moral objection to
> being kept as a slave, they are moral to try and escape.
>
> Since you reject moral relativism, obviously you disagree.
Yep. That is a good summation of both David's position and mine, I think.
Now back to might makes right... *isn't* moral relativism a kind of "might
makes right"?
I think it is (without too much, if any, twisting) and that's one of my
issues with it (but then, what do you expect, I'm a "being human gives us
natural rights" kind of guy...).
++Lar
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