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Is there an absolute morality?

Bradskii

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Thats not value nihilsm. Nietzsche was not a value nihilist.

Just as an aside, I heard this yesterday in a discussion between Stephen Fry and Steven Pinker. Fry asked if our sense of morality was 'Nature, nurture...or Nietzsche'.
 
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stevevw

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You avoided the point of the post. My fault as I should have presented it as a question:

Is it true that what you say has been correctly determined to be objectively immoral aligns exactly with your views.
But it can't because what is a moral truth is determined by our intuitions and then is rationally and logicaly determined. So it is not determined by anyones views. I can't rationalize a moral truth when the truth is indepedendent of me.
 
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Moral Orel

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But it can't because what is a moral truth is determined by our intuitions and then is rationally and logicaly determined. So it is not determined by anyones views.
Yeah, those can't both be true.
 
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VirOptimus

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https://thebackporchpundits.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/521/

You quote a piece called "The Hypocrisy of Moral Relativism" and think thats a good source?

No, and "widely acknowledged" is not a support of your assertion without some scientific study as a source.

A fail.

you’re not appreciating that moral situations are given meaning by humans through their making morals objective by reasoning them. That gives them independence and authority.

This is not "objective morality", in fact this is what is called "subjective morality".


If it was self-evident then it wouldnt need to be codified now would it?


"Evolutionists" (whatever that would be) do no such thing. Neither do philosophers.

Now, in humanist terms it is an agreeable foundations, but in no way is it "objective".

If one says "it is a pretty good one to start with" then its not objective.

So basically you are creating another fallacy that what I read is crap because it doesn’t match what you think to be the truth rather than address my argument.

No, I urge you to study more because your arguments are crap. There are arguments for a belief in "objective morality" that are more sound, you just dont understand them.
 
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VirOptimus

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No, thats not how it works. Do you even know what "self-evident" entails?


Again, an assertion need some data or arguments supporting it. Saying "its self evident" is neither.


Stop spamming links, I dont read them and neither do you, you just spam with something that suppports your point of view.



We have no "good reason to believe its true", and besides, if its a belief then its not a fact.

Humans are the authority. Not by their subjective thinking but by their rational and logical thinking. By their belief in their intuitive knowledge of moral truths. Any standard that allows human life.

If humans are the authority then there is no such thing as "objective morals".
 
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Bradskii

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But it can't because what is a moral truth is determined by our intuitions and then is rationally and logicaly determined. So it is not determined by anyones views. I can't rationalize a moral truth when the truth is indepedendent of me.

I'm not asking you to determine if something is objectively right or wrong. I am asking you if all things that are, in your understanding, objectively right or wrong always align with your personal opinion.
 
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stevevw

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I'm not asking you to determine if something is objectively right or wrong. I am asking you if all things that are, in your understanding, objectively right or wrong always align with your personal opinion.
I am not sure. I would have to think about that one. Why is that important.
 
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Bradskii

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I am not sure. I would have to think about that one. Why is that important.

Well, wouldn't it be quite a coincidence that all moral acts, which you say are right or wrong whatever you might personally think, always align with your personal views? That wouldn't be credible. So there must be moral acts that are right or wrong with which you disagree.

Can you give an example or two?
 
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Sabertooth

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The same act that might be called rape in one place might be called consensual in another.
That is true about statutory rape, but never in the case of forced, unwanted sex.
 
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Sabertooth

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What if the woman is is no position to consent?
  1. Refusal/lack of consent is not a contextual consideration.
  2. Only the admissibility of consent, if granted, is.
Legal Adult?___Consent Given?___Consent Granted?
  • Yes_____________Yes_______________Yes
  • No______________Yes_______________No
  • Yes_____________No________________No
  • No______________No_______________No
Red is always wrong.
Purple depends on local definition of "majority."
 
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Ken-1122

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That is true about statutory rape, but never in the case of forced, unwanted sex.
I wasn't talking about forced unwanted sex, I was talking about rape. There are a lot of actions put under the umbrella of rape that does not constitute unwanted sex. My point was if he is gonna try to use the legal term of rape as an objective morally wrong issue, that is why his argument failed.
 
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Bradskii

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  1. Refusal/lack of consent is not a contextual consideration.
  2. Only the admissibility of consent, if granted, is.
I appreciate the time you spent in producing the tables. But I'm having difficulty in grasping the meaning of those two comments. I don't know what you mean by 'the admissibilty of consent'. Can you please clarify?
 
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Sabertooth

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I don't know what you mean by 'the admissibilty of consent'. Can you please clarify?
Is [her] consent legally recognized as such?
In the case of a minor, no.
The only "gray" area, there, is that "age of majority" is not universally defined.
A 15yo in the USA, generally, cannot grant legal consent.
A 15yo in another country might be able to.

(This is all a subset of whether the couple is married or not.)
 
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Bradskii

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I think it used to be 12 in the Vatican City.
 
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stevevw

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But that sounds more like an objective moral situation and not an absolute. We can say that lying still remains an objective moral because in the context of the Nazi's hunting down Jews to send them to the gas chambers the moral truth now becomes a matter of saving lives which is a greater moral. So lying is morally right to save those lives. Its often the intent which makes things moral or not.

But as far as I understand it absolute is best understood through its opposite relative morality. This is more about an outside influence such as a culture or environment that group of people are subjected to that causes them to see morality (relative) through that lens. So each culture has its own and different lens to deetrmine how morality works.

So absolute morality would mean that instead of there being many relative views of what is right there would be a single set of morals (absolute) that trumps all relative views. But its more about nations, cultures, groups relative to each other rather than individuals within that group. Each culture can have sub cultures but they will still primarily by based on the dominant culture.

The point to make here is that western nations especially the powerful ones like the US tend to take an absolute moral position in the world by imposing their relative moral view onto others cultures.

For me this says something about the nature of morality. That its impossible to have a system that allows many truths when morality comes down to one truth.
 
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stevevw

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You avoided the point of the post. My fault as I should have presented it as a question:

Is it true that what you say has been correctly determined to be objectively immoral aligns exactly with your views.
Its a weird question as I don't think we all know our moral positions completely. They may not have all been tested. I can safely say that the core set of moral truths align with my views of morality. As for the rest thats up for debate. But I don't get why you are asking.
 
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