Debate : 9191


Off-Topic / Debate / 9191	9190 \| 9192

Subject:	Re: Essay on Emerson vs. Thoreau; civil disobedience
Newsgroups:	lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date:	Wed, 31 Jan 2001 20:27:13 GMT
Viewed:	446 times

In lugnet.off-topic.debate, James Brown writes: Snip. > Might makes right is, simplified, the belief that force is the ultimate > arbiter of any conflict; in other words, that morality is external, and > derived from enforcement. I would not agree with the above definition, but rather offer this one instead: MMR is the belief that there *is* no morality. whatever you have the power to do is OK, with no objective standard to be held to whether internal or external. There are no rights to anything, everything is amoral. > Moral relativism holds that morality is ultimately a subjective belief, and > doesn't go any farther than that. There are derivations from and > consequences of that basic concept, but that's it, in a nutshell. I think maybe it's the very commonly cited consequence that you can't judge someone else's morality as inferior by an objective standard that I have an issue with, as that is unacceptable. But if it's an immutable consequence, then the premise is unacceptable as well.

Message has 2 Replies:

		Re: Essay on Emerson vs. Thoreau; civil disobedience
(...) Ah, then ok. I'm fine with that. Just so long as we make sure to clarify that the 'right' in MMR isn't a moral right. The only problem being, though, that while theoretically true, it's not the case in reality, only because human moral codes (...) (24 years ago, 31-Jan-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

		Re: Essay on Emerson vs. Thoreau; civil disobedience
(...) Ok. I think that 'morality...derived from enforcement' and 'whatever you have the power to do is OK' are equivalent statements, but that's just quibbling. (...) That consequence does follow fairly directly, so I guess that's where it fails for (...) (24 years ago, 31-Jan-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:

		Re: Essay on Emerson vs. Thoreau; civil disobedience
(...) No, I think you've got it backwards. Moral relativism is (essentially) stating that morality is subjective & internal, while 'might makes right' is stating that moral action is anything that can be enforced. I've started to go further about (...) (24 years ago, 31-Jan-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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