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 20:52:36 GMT
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Viewed:
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456 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> 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.
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 are actually very close to each other. You won't find many
(if any) humans that believe theft is good or that slavery is actually good.
> > 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.
And why is that?
1st off, relative morality (in my book) says that you COULD measure someone
morally, but the objective standard dictates to measure them against their
own personal standard. I.E. you can only judge someone as 'truly' being
moral or immoral by knowing their 'true' moral code, and how accurately
they've followed it.
2nd, assuming that you'll blow that off as impossible and thereby useless
(dunno if you would or not), are you suggesting that it is necessary to
judge someone against a universal moral code? Or are you saying that you
just want to be able to judge others, regardless of the standard?
DaveE
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