You're not making any sense ML. It is not contradictory at all. I make up my morals and may choose to reject others', just like you do, and just like everyone else does. That is not contradictory, that is perfectly consistent. You may not realize it, but you are actually making up your own morals and are claiming them to be absolute - but there is no source for your morals, other than what you made up and decided to adopt as universal.


I did want to address this point.. If morality was universal and absolute, then the entire world would have fought against Hitler or slavery� But instead, a sadly large number of people thought that Hitler�s positions were moral, or even noble. And when our esteemed founding fathers owned slaves, a large portion of this country thought nothing of it. They thought it was in fact moral, �absolutely and universally� moral.

Do I agree with the Nazi and the slave owners? Of course not, and I would have fought against them had I been alive back them. Just like today a lot of people are fighting back against the �moral� execution practices in this country, against the �moral� murder of animals, while others consider those actions to be "absolutely moral".

It is precisely because morality is not universal that we have constant battles between countries, between religions, and between people (witness the election debates). Everyone is convinced that they have the �universal� morality on their side.

But there is no �fountain of truth� in this �universal� morality � everyone has their own morals, if not in the big life and death issues, then certainly in the more minute details of how much can one speed.

To claim that morality is universal, without providing a source for this �universal truth�, defies all logic.

AGG

Exactly.

AGG

I know I won't get an answer, but why not try... Whose morals, ML? Yours? Hitler's? Slave Owners? Republicans? Democrats? Christians? Catholics? Jews (Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform)? Muslims? Vegetarians? Vegans?

Help me out here, give me a source for these "universal" principles you keep referring to...

AGG

AGG, I know it doesn't make sense to you now, but I think if you really think it through, you will understand how contradictory your position actually is. First off, you are asserting your OWN universal moral absolute when you say:

"Morality is in the eyes of the beholder"

And secondly, you can't negate my assertion that there are moral absolutes when you have just asserted that all morality is legitimate. That is the basic position of a moral relativist and that is what you are promoting whether you understand it or not.


That makes no sense at all. All you are saying here is that unless 100% of people AGREE that killing Jews is murder and AGREE to fight Hitler that killing Jews was not immoral?

A person's perception or acceptance of a moral absolute does not change the moral absolute. Otherwise, we have wrongly incarcerated thousands of Americans for the crime of murder in this country.

A moral absolute does not have to be universally ACCEPTED to be a moral absolute. That is not how the world works.

You have already answered this, though. You told us that:


You told us that ALL morality is legitimate. Are you backtracking from that position?

Is that a universal absolute or does it only apply to you?

Here you do it again, you make a claim of a universal moral ["everyone has their own morals - there is no fountain of truth"] in the same sentence where you DENY that there is such a thing as a universal morality.

You just refuted yourself.........in the same sentence.

C'mon, AGG, surely you can see the contradictions in your posts?

Yup, great example. The moral absolutists don't like to get into these examples though, because things become far less black and white then, and who wants to deal with shades of grey when you have "absoluteness" and "universality" on your side...

AGG

So is our country immoral for killing Osams Bin Laden? For killing countless Iraqis? For dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima? How about killing someone in self defense?
How about killing someone preemptively because you know they are about to kill others?

No universal answer to those questions, which is why you have yet to answer them....

AGG

But if murder is not a moral absolute there would be nothing TO debate. Do you see how your examples only give CREDENCE to the notion of moral absolutes? If murder is not universally immoral, then WHO CARES about the killings in those examples?

People might disagree about the application of said moral, but even *YOU* don't disagree with the basic moral principle of murder. While people may get morality wrong in complicated situations, they don't get it wrong on the basics.

Not at all, my position is in fact simple - everyone defines their morality, because there is not universal morality.

It is YOUR position that I am asking about, because you have yet to tell me where this secret source of universal morality can be found for others to review and follow. Please humor me, where can I find it?

AGG

Is that universally true or only true to YOU, though?

OK, I think someone else has been drinking this morning, and it's not me this time.

Where is the contradiction between "everyone has their own morals - there is no fountain of truth" and "you DENY that there is such a thing as a universal morality. "? That is exactly the same statement, which is that there is no universal morality.

And until you tell me where it can be found, I will have to assume that universal morality simply means "ML morality", even though I don't know what that means...

AGG

I don't have any idea what you are asking me, ML.

I'm going to bow out of this silly argument where I keep asking the same questions and not getting even an attempt at an answer.

When and if someone makes the effort to tell me where the source of all the universal moral answers can be found, I'll be happy to re-engage, but I won't hold my breath...

AGG

OH DEAR.

This reminds me of my cousin Joe Don. He went to the farm with my grandfather once and disappeared into the shed for a short time. He came out with a gas ring around his mouth. My grandfather let him walk around all day with the gas ring.

I am embarrassed that you can't see the contradictions in your posts, AGG. I mean that sincerely. As far as my own "morality," I do not believe that *I* make moral absolutes - IT IS YOU WHO BELIEVES THIS.

I know.

I already answered this, I think.


Then you'll be arguing against a strawman from here on out, I guess.

I'm a years-long reader on this site (not married, not even sure what got me hooked in many years ago, but I find some of the discussions interesting), and I just now registered so that I could respond to A Good Guy by saying:

This is the very definition of a no-win argument, but I nonetheless wanted to chime in to tell you that I understand what you're saying, and it makes sense to me -- completely. To me, the world is full of all sorts of shades of grey. There are times when I personally would find it easier if the world was more black and white, and even times when I envy people who do see things in black and white. But what can I do? Sometimes, it's like speaking Italian and expecting someone who only understands Swahili to get what you're saying. People are just different...

Anyway, carry on! I've appreciated your thoughts over the years. You do, in fact, seem like a very Good Guy.

I don't think that is a surprise.

Thanks Portola, and I appreciate your support. Sometimes I wonder if my English (my third language, maybe that's the problem) is hard to comprehend.. I mean I ask simple questions, but instead of getting a straightforward answer I get a story about cousin Joe with a gas ring around his mouth .

The world has always been grey, as shown by the endless wars and election battles - people try to force their "universal" morality onto the great unwashed. I just have to laugh at the absolutists who cannot even cite the sources for their morality other than "they just know it because it is universal". But then they can't answer any of the dozens of "simple" questions I asked in the past few pages.

Anyway, thanks for joining and participating, nice to have you onboard.

AGG

I read back a little bit, are you referring to this statement?:


If so, that sounds an awful lot like the point I have been trying to make here for the past few days. Reason, thought, and discovery is what leads to a set of morals; since no two people reason, think, and discover things the same way, the idea of a universal morality is absurd.

AGG