Can we claim that the nazis were morally wrong?

[Jim__]

Are there any absolute moral standards? If not, can we claim that the nazis were morally wrong? The question comes (this time) from Austin Dacey in his book The Secular Conscience - the editorials cited at the top of the URL are worth reading. The current issue of Free Inquiry excerpts a chapter from the book (unfortunately, the article is not available online) The question about the nazis comes from a section of the chapter, and I'm taking this paraphrase from Neuhaus's review:

...He writes about a philosophy professor who reports that none of his students are Holocaust deniers, but an increasing number are even worse: “They acknowledge the fact, even deplore it, but cannot bring themselves to condemn it morally.” Who are they to say that the Nazis were morally wrong? And so it is also with apartheid, slavery, and ethnic cleansing. For these students, passing moral judgment “is to be a moral ‘absolutist,’ and having been taught that there are no absolutes, they now see any judgment as arbitrary, intolerant, and authoritarian.”

So, if there are no moral absolutes, can we condemn the nazis? Why would modern day philosophy students think that they can't? What moral standard can we use to condemn the nazis?

[trotsky]

1. It's a problem for theists and atheists alike.

Even those who claim there are "absolute" moral standards can, at best, point to a book for them. But we have no idea if what the book purports to be is actually true. After all, there are multiple holy books all claiming to be divinely inspired, most of them entirely contradictory.

What we are left with is moral rationalism. Utilitarianism, basically. We judge the morality of an act based on the harm or good it brings. Societies have always done this, even those claiming to be based on absolute religious morals.

[Jim__]

6. The difference is that people who believe in moral absolutes can condemn the nazis.

Being able to condemn nazi atrocities is the minimum we can ask from morality. If morality can't give us that, then it is meaningless.

[trotsky]

10. The point is, they are on equal footing with non-absolutists.

They're simply *declaring* an equally relative set of morals to be absolute. How does that solve anything?

[Jim__]

16. Your argument is that their belief is wrong.

That's a different argument, and certainly one that the believer doesn't accept. What holding morality to be absolute resolves is that anyone can be judged against that absolute standard. So, it is possible to claim that what the nazis did was immoral.

If there is no absolute standard, you can claim that the nazis violated your standard of morality, but you cannot claim that they violated their own. And, if they adhered to their own standard of morality, and there is no absolute standard against which to judge that, you cannot claim that they were immoral.

There are non-religious people who argue that there is an absolute morality. I think that is very difficult argument to make.

I also think it is very difficult to accept that most known absolute standards of morality can ultimately claim that there is any particular action that cannot be justified under the right circumstances. That is, I think most absolute standards of morality are also quite relative in practice.

Strong pacificism is the one that stands out in my mind as being non-relative. It's also one that few people follow.

[trotsky]

18. Not wrong, just unsupported.

As unsupported as any other moral system. It's a problem for ALL humans, not just for believers/non-believers/etc.

[roguevalley]

83. morality without the condemnation of acts of evil, especially those

as atrocious as this is not morality.

[HamdenRice]

8. Nope, there's not a strictly utilitarian solution

Utilitarianism does not solve the problem. As conventionally stated, untilitarianism judges proposed actions by evaluating whether the action will lead to the greatest good for the greatest number.

As Garrett Hardin, one of the founders of the philosophy of environmentalism pointed out about four decades ago, utilitarianism presents two problems -- first, the question of from whose perspective the good will be judged and second that it attempts to maximize two values in one equation (good and number of people), a problem familiar to everyone who completed high school algebra.

So with the Nazi problem, judged from the perspective of the Germans, for example, stealing the Jews' wealth, taking their businesses, seizing their land and property, the holocaust increased the good to them -- if the good to the Jews, Gypsies and other despised groups was ignored. That indeed goes a long way to explaining the cruelty and inhumanity of the average German.

The second problem would be illustrated by a Nazi regime that was not genocidal, but had to decide on maximizing two values -- good and number of people. Should it make one or two people Gates-like billionaires? Or should it make everyone middle class? You can't maximize both without reference to some other values -- values other than, and from outside, utilitarianism, such as a preference for equality (the middle class solution) or a preference for individual liberty (the billionaire solution).

Only after John Rawls proposed the "veil of ignorance" thought experiment has utilitarianism been able to trump some of these problems. Rawls suggested that the kind of society we would want would be one in which we constructed its basic fairness, and its balance between equality and liberty from a position of igorance about where we would be in that society. In other words, we would have a debate in 1930s Germany about all the possible societal organizations without knowing whether in that society we each individually would be a German or a German Jew or a Gypsie. Not knowing that, each of us would undoubtedly all agree that we would not want a society that included a holocaust against Jews and Gypsies, because we wouldn't know whether we, individually, would be beneficiaries or victims.

[trotsky]

12. But is it better than arbitrarily picking a book and claiming *it* has a monopoly on moral truth?

No, utilitarianism isn't a perfect solution. I don't believe I claimed that. However I think even you would agree it's better than picking a religious book and declaring its moral statements to be absolute, wouldn't you?

If you're faulting utilitarianism, do you have a better solution?

[HamdenRice]

14. Of the three attempted solutions utilitarianism may be the worst

Did you read the post? Of course I posited a better solution -- John Rawls theory of construcing society from the point of view of the veil of ignorance, a society whose rules about equality and liberty are constructed as though we didn't know our place in that society. The result tends to be a society in which the rules focus on making the least well off, better off (because no one would want to risk being one of the least well off).

The advantage of certain arbitrary religious traditions is that they provide absolute rules -- and some of those absolute rules have proven to be adaptive (without regard to whether they are right or can be justified). For example, a religious tradition that asked society unquestionably to follow the rule "thou shalt not kill" would be a better society than ours.

The risk is that there is no outside authority to tell us why we should obey that religion rather than one that commands, "thou shalt kill."

The problem with utilitarianism, like the other materialist philosophies of the 19th and 20th century, is that it cannot answer whose good to measure or how many people's good to measure. Strictly speaking, utilitarianism can be used to justify slavery, Stalinism or Nazism, if the utility that we measure in each case is that of slave owners, future communist man, or members of the German master race, respectively.

Strictly speaking, we are talking about different systems -- one that is "substantive" and focuses on unquestioned axioms about what is good, and their logical results (morality), and the other that is "process," and focuses on logical procedures for determining what is good and their logical results (ethics).

[trotsky]

15. You weren't very clear.

You made Rawls' "theory" sound like it was just a variation of utilitarianism. You are now arguing it as a separate viewpoint altogether and just another opportunity to bash materialism and relaunch old attacks. Regardless, I think this subthread is done. If you would prefer to live in a society based on a holy text rather than one based on utilitarianism, that's your right. You could move to the Middle East.

[Unvanguard]

77. We count everyone's utility.

So we count the utility the Nazis gain from murdering Jews... and we count the utility the Jews lose by being murdered.

The totals would not even compare: the Holocaust is an unambiguous utilitarian evil. Being murdered is a massively greater loss than not being allowed to murder.

[Unvanguard]

74. Rawls was not a utilitarian of any variety--his theory was a challenge to utilitarianism.

Rawls was deontologically inclined; his political philosophy had a decidedly Kantian flavor, though in my view it missed (at least) one crucial element of Kant that undermines his entire framework.

In any case, utilitarianism (while wrong) is rather more defensible than you give it credit for. It is not a simple statement of "greatest good for the greatest number": utilitarians are explicit that the "good" they are concerned with is utility (happiness, preference satisfaction). Everyone's utility counts equally, controlling for intensity, duration, and number.

"Maximizing" utility thus becomes a matter of summing up quantities of utility. Yes, a marginal analysis is required in some cases--"Do we increase the number of people this policy helps or the average added utility per person?"--but it is one that has one right (very difficult to discover precisely) answer.

[gristy]

2. You're asking lots of questions here but giving no opinions.

Why is that?

[Jim__]

3. Because I want to know what people think is the answer to the question..

I have my own ideas about an answer, but, I don't think there is a particularly good answer to the question. If I state what I think in the OP, then a lot of the answers are about what I think. I'm less interested in discussing my opinion than in discussing the general question.

[gristy]

4. good luck with that

On a hot topic such as this I suggest you clearly state your position and then be prepared to defend it.

[regularguy]

5. You bet.

While I'm not a religious believer, I'm still gonna go out on a limb here and say that some shit is just wrong. Acts done selfishly that cause harm are just plain worse than selfless acts that reduce suffering. I guess one can analyze themselves into some sort of extreme absurdist relativism, and maybe one could even technically defend such a position. Me, I'm too old for that sort of wank-age.

[Jim__]

7. The question is not about religion. It's about moral absolutes.

By saying some shit is just wrong, I think you're saying that you believe in a moral absolute. What is the source of this moral absolute?

[regularguy]

9. I believe in morals.

Maybe they're not absolute; there probably was a time when that would be a philosophical problem for me, but now I just don't care. I think actions can be judged by intent and consequences. That philosophy majors can find imperfection in this argument to the point of being unable to even condemn the Nazis is something I don't find surprising or relevant and mainly makes me think that they should maybe go take a walk or kiss a girl or something. :)

[The Night Owl]

35. The moral absolute comes from the human ability to reason.

The Nazis and the Germans who facilitated their actions were motivated by a mixture of nationalism, racism, and paranoia... a toxic mixture of irrational emotions and fears which gave rise to and which fueled the conspiracy theories the Nazis used to justify the atrocities they committed. If Nazi ideology had been based on a rational premise, then the Nazis would not have done what they did.

[Jim__]

37. Morality based on reason is situational, not absolute.

We decide on what is moral based on the current conditions. There is no absolute. Is killing OK? It depends on the circumstances. Lying? Stealing?

And given that reason is the basis for morality, how should a reasonable person have acted in Germany in 1932, after Hitler came to power? Was it reasonable to resist the nazis? And if it was unreasonable to resist the nazis, was it moral to do so?

[The Night Owl]

38. If one applies reason in dealing with various circumstances, then the moral absolute...

...becomes evident because morality is the product of reason.

Actions such as lying, stealing, and killing are tactics which can be used in certain circumstances. Tactics are not not intrinsically moral or immoral. Tactics can be used for immoral purposes but they are never more than tactics. Because tactics are not intrinsically moral or immoral, the moral absolute pertains only to how tactics are used, not that they are used.

[Jim__]

40. So, what is the reasonable moral decision for the apolitical German citizen in 1932?

Go along with the nazis or resist? And, are you claiming that there is one right moral action for all Germans? If not, if different Germans can reasonably make different moral decisions in this concrete instance, how is this an absolute moral standard?

I believe different Germans can make different moral decisions in these circumstances, but that makes morality situational.

[The Night Owl]

49. In 1932, Germans who didn't know what Adolf Hitler stood for had an obligation to...

...find out what he stood for. Those who knew what Hitler stood for had an obligation to resist him or at the very least not support him.

[Meshuga]

42. But what is moral absolut in one's opinion might not be the moral absolut for the other

For example, in Jewish law to resist the Nazis was an obligation while for Jehova Witnesses it was very wrong to resist.

Guess who the nazis used as their barbers? ;-)

But who owns the moral absolut here? The Jews or the JW's?

I don't think there is an absolute here. I think there is opinion of what is moral and what is immoral based on the moral system of a specific group.

[The Night Owl]

48. Huh? Jehovah's Witnesses were persecuted by the Nazis for not pledging allegiance to them.

Anyway...

The fact that religious doctrine sometimes compels people to take a course of action which they would have taken anyway had they been employing reason is largely a matter of coincidence. To employ morality is to employ reason.

[Meshuga]

50. I was not taking about JW's decision whether to pledge allegiance to the nazis or not

I was referring to the difference in approach between a Jehovah's Witness and a Jew when faced with the decision of sticking a blade through a nazi's throat when given a chance. Jehovah Witnesses were used as barbers by the nazis at concentration camps (as opposed to Jews) for a reason.

The two different groups have different set of moralities, one views as wrong to kill another person in any circumstance while the other views that killing the oppressor to preserve your own life is the right thing to do.

Which side holds the moral absolute here? One can reason that killing is wrong while the other can reason that let yourself be killed to preserve the life of a killer is wrong so which decision is held as a moral absolute?

[The Night Owl]

51. The pacifist view that killing is wrong in all circumstances is immoral...

...because killing is sometimes... well... logical.

Pacifists fancy themselves a moral people but they are not. The truth is that pacifists are fanatics who embrace doctrine over reason.

[Meshuga]

56. I happen to agree with your opinion as far as that pacifist view

But I still don't see my/our opinion as absolute. Something is immoral not because it violates reason but because it is displeasing to us. Reason helps us make judgements but it does not make something moral or immoral.

[Jim__]

58. You claim that killing is sometimes logical. Some pacificts disagree with that.

The conclusions that logic leads to are based on the assumptions that you start with. To claim that pacificism is illogical, you have to point out an inconsistency in pacifist reasoning. You haven't. You've just made a dogmatic proclamation and called it reason.

[Meshuga]

59. I think The Night Owl is saying

"The pacifist view that killing is wrong in all circumstances is immoral" not that pacifism as a whole is illogical. And to point out the inconsistency in that reasoning one can say that rewarding the person who is trying to kill you is wrong. You can kill in self-defense. But that is an opinion.

One can use reason to kill a man in order to eat him. However, the person's sense of morality, NOT REASON, might stop that from happening.

[The Night Owl]

61. To argue that morality stops a man from killing another man to eat him...

...is to argue that reason stops the man from killing the other man to eat him. Because humans have the intellectual capacity to think abstractly, the man who is thinking about killing another man to eat him can feel empathy for him.

[Meshuga]

62. Reason can be a tool for one to arrive at a moral decision

But it is not what makes something moral or immoral. Empathy (in this case), which comes from the person's emotional side, is what makes the act seem right or wrong to the person thus turning it into a moral dilemma.

For a cannibal in a remote tribe somewhere who is trying to avoid starvation that situation might not be a moral dilemma. But it is to us.

Like I said earlier, an act is immoral not because it violates reason but because it is displeasing to us.

My two cents. :-)

[The Night Owl]

63. Does empathy come from emotions or does it give rise to emotions? I believe that empathy...

...gives rise to emotions. Empathy is often described as an emotion but I think it is most accurately defined as identifying with someone's situation. Indentifying with someone's situation requires reason... specifically, abstract thinking.

[knitter4democracy]

11. Well, is it a moral absolute that ethnic cleansing is wrong?

I mean, they tried to wipe out entire groups of people (Jews, gays, Slavs) and had plans to do so. I realize humans have been doing that to their enemies for ages, but those were actual enemies, most of the time, who actually threatened their way of life. Hitler took that to a whole new level and saw enemies everywhere, even ones who weren't any real threat, and did his level best to eliminate them entirely.

How would that be okay ever?

[Jim__]

13. If that is a moral absolute, then we can condemn the nazis.

But what is the basis for that absolute?

As to the nature of the threat, Hitler saw it as real, and I believe he convinced a number of Germans that it was real. Remember, Russia had made peace with Germany, just a little before Germany surrendered, surrended and had extremely harsh penalties imposed. To the German people, the surrender made no sense. After the Russians made peace, how could Germany be worse off than before? An explanation accepted by large numbers of Germans is that they had been betrayed - "stabbed in the back." Believing that, how was Germany's reaction any different than the other instances you cite where people's way of life was actually threatened which may have justified the ethnic cleansing?

[knitter4democracy]

21. So, killing enemies is fine, but killing off entire groups of people isn't.

I think it might be more an order of magnitude. Killing off an entire part of the human race is taking things too far, and while it's been done in human history, I'm not sure it's as common as taking over the enemy (after killing off the leaders and top soldiers) and incorporating them.

[Jim__]

27. That doesn't sound like an absolute standard. - n/t

[knitter4democracy]

29. What would be, then?

If you kill more than 50K or 10K or some number everyone can agree on, then it's bad? Would that be an absolute? I'm just curious what your definition of a moral absolute is.

[Jim__]

32. Kant's categorical imperative against lying.

According to Kant, lying is always wrong. No exceptions. That is an absolute moral standard.

[Meshuga]

39. I disagree with Kant as far as lying

Not making this an absolut moral standard. What about lying to save your own life? What about lying not to hurt someone? For example, I don't see virtue in being "brutally honest" with people. Sometimes is not the right thing to do (according to my moral standards).

[Jim__]

41. I disagree with Kant's stand on lying too.

But, I really can't think of any clear absolute moral standard. But, lacking such a standard, it may be impossible to make a moral judgement about other people's actions.

[Unvanguard]

72. "Lying to save your own life", at least in the context of immediate self-defense

is acceptable for the same reasons killing in self-defense is.

"Lying not to hurt someone", though, is never justifiable. People are entitled to decide for themselves how to respond to reality. They should not be manipulated into a happiness they would not have if they knew the truth.

[knitter4democracy]

46. Ah. That makes sense.

So, if you say killing is ever okay for any circumstance, then it's not an absolute. Got it.

[The Night Owl]

52. The view that lying is always wrong is not a moral standard because...

...because it is not a reasonable position to hold. The view that lying is always wrong is a doctrine. Because morality is founded on reason, a moral standard is one which is based on reason, not doctrine.

[Jim__]

57. Kant's claim about the morality of lying is the conclusion he draws from his reasoned approach to

morality.

[Unvanguard]

71. Sure it is, agree with it or not.

The major problem with lying, in the Kantian ethical framework, is that it deprives the victim of free choice, and as a manipulative tactic it does: by lying, you give someone a "reason" to act that isn't really a reason at all (because it is false). Because Kant believes that people are entitled to freedom, that it is categorically wrong to deprive another of his or her autonomy, he concludes that lying is always wrong.

Nothing unreasonable about that.

[Unvanguard]

70. Two different senses of "absolute."

You're talking about absolute moral rules, like "Never lie." But a person can reject absolute moral rules while accepting the existence of objective (absolute) morality: there can be a universally valid and binding moral system that has no specific rule that applies in all circumstances.

[heidler1]

20. From what I've read the ground work of hate for the Jews was laid in place

with the "Passion Plays" That were put on in many places in Germany.

[knitter4democracy]

22. True, but even the Germans I've met say they are horrified at the extent.

My mom's hubby is German, and his mom lived through the war. She still gets sick to her stomach at the sight of too many flags (even here) and the sound of low-flying airplanes. The way she put it, while many were upset with the Jews, no one knew or would've been okay with erasing them from the planet. It's one thing to turn a nation against a common enemy, but it's another to do ethnic cleansing.

[heidler1]

24. IMO religion had, perhaps unintentionally, a hand in the the hate.

As I remember the Pope at the time went to Germany and met with Hitler.

Is there much difference when compared to Bush and our approved brutal treatment of insurgents, other than quanity? If the powers that be sanction total brutality finding humans to carry it out is easy. Religion has little or no effect on this human weakness. A bare majority of the Supreme Court said "NO".

I hope that the disrespect of people that wear their religion on their sleve will gut the power that religion has in the USA. I suspect Hitler's legacy is the loss of faith in religion in Germany, it' happening.

[Meshuga]

17. The nazis were reprehensibly wrong

...according to the moral standard that I adopt.

Nazis thought that what they were doing was acceptable according to their own set of moral standards which most of us view as immoral. I would not want to live in a society where the systematic murder of millions of people was acceptable.

If the question is whether a God is necessary in order to set moral standards then perhaps he is necessary for the set of standards for a specific religion but this deity cannot speak for other religions since they have their own set of moral standards.

For example, how can the same God tell some of his followers that a fetus is a human being and tell the other followers that a fetus is not yet considered a human being until after the fetus is born? What does the "absolute moral standard" have to say about that?

If there is in fact an universal set of moral standards then what is the point of having a democracy in order to decide what is wrong or right for us in our society?

[Jim__]

26. It's easy to look back and say the nazis were wrong.

But you say: I would not want to live in a society where the systematic murder of millions of people was acceptable. Do you live in the US? How many people do you think have been systematically murdered just between Vietnam and Iraq by the US? Has it reached an intolerable level yet? Is it acceptable because the total has been spread over, say, 35 years?

The real problem for me is that I believe in just about any country today, if it were living under conditions similar to what Germany was under after WWI, a Hitler could rise to power. So, what have we learned? I don't think we've learned very much. And, I don't think that bodes well for the future of humanity.

[Meshuga]

31. Who is saying America is right?

To answer your question, I live in the US and I am an American citizen. However, while I find the Iraqi war to be an immoral war, and the killing of innocent Iraqis to be horrible and disgusting, I don't think the US government objective is to systematically wipe Iraqis from the face of the earth. And, more importantly, I don't think anybody would win elections or popularity by adhering to such policy. I think that most Americans would be against the genocide of Iraqis and any other people.

I am not defending US foreign policy but I don't think US and Nazi Germany had the same goals. I think a better US domestic analogy to Nazi Germany was the American treatment of Native Americans as well as the treatment of African Americans.

[Silent3]

19. Just recently some preacher McCain had to disavow...

...had suggested that the Nazis might have been "the Hand of God", via some twisted logic that I think came down to getting the Jews flee Europe to establish Israel, helping to set the stage for Armageddon.

(Odd how this crap doesn't get the same air play as Rev. Wright, huh?)

Supposedly absolute standards don't seem to end up being very absolute in practice.

[and-justice-for-all]

23. Of course the Nazis were morally broke...

How could one consider anything else.?

[Zebedeo]

25. Of course we can

Anyone but the self-deluded can see that.

[uberllama42]

28. What if God told them to do it?

According to your own earlier contention, the genocide against the Midianites was just because God ordered that it be so. Hitler claimed that he was acting in accordance with the will of God:

I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.

Moreover:

What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland; so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator.

Both are from Mein Kampf. What if Hitler's claim of divine direction was true? Could you then say that Hitler can absolutely be condemned as morally wrong? In that case, wouldn't the Nazis be justified in what they did?

Also, how can we be sure that Hitler's claim was not indeed true? If we accept the genocide of the Midianites as both historical and mandated by God, how could we say that God would never order such a thing be done to the Jews? There are numerous instances in the Old Testament of God harshly and even brutally punishing the Jews for their lack of faith.

This is one of the primary complications of theistic ethics (akin to the Euthyphro dilemma). It is one reason why I am uncomfortable with the idea of one being having complete discretion over what is right and wrong.

[trotsky]

34. Great catch.

A definite problem for a literalist like Zeb.

[The Night Owl]

36. Let us not forget that the only Nazi who was excommunicated by the Catholic Church...

...was Joseph Goebbels and the only reason why he was excommunicated was because he married a Protestant. The horror!

[struggle4progress]

87. Can you provide any real evidence that the twentieth century Catholic Church regarded intermarriage

with Protestants such an anathema that excommunication would be required? It is true that the Church traditionally disapproved such marriages but the nature of the disapproval has typically been complicated, involving nuanced formulations such as valid but illicit

I call attention to the following, not because I entirely agree with the doctrines there, but rather to shed some light on the Catholic perspective:

Mixed Marriage: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09698a.htm
Disparity of Worship: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05037b.htm

If you cannot provide the requested evidence, your supposed historical example would appear to be suspect

[Zebedeo]

54. Hitler despised Christians

and the Christian God. Hitler was a Darwinist racist who reveled in neo-pagan fantasies. Christian believers and clergy were targeted by the Nazis for persecution.

Here's a brief summary.

[trotsky]

55. Keep dreaming, Zeb.

Even if we grant you your fantasy that Hitler wasn't a Christian, it doesn't answer the question. You have already allowed for ANY action, no matter how heinous, to be justified as long as your god ordered it. So unless you can conclusively prove that your god didn't tell Hitler to do those things, you cannot condemn him.

[uberllama42]

60. You have utterly neglected to answer my question

or in any way address my point. I never claimed that Hitler was a Christian. Joshua wasn't a Christian, either. Furthermore, not everyone in the bible who does God's bidding is necessarily a member of the "right" religion.

I'll ask you again: If, as Hitler claimed, he was acting in accordance with God's will, would his slaughter of the Jews have been justified in the same way you believe that the slaughter of the Midianites was justified?

[Zebedeo]

64. "If ifs and buts were candy and nuts,

we'd all have a Merry Christmas."

Your hypothesis is nonsensical, inasmuch as it posits a Christian God who is evil. The Christian God is by definition not evil, so the hypothesis makes no sense. It is akin to when atheists ask "But who created God?" Again, this is a nonsensical question, becaue by definition, God is uncreated and eternal.

Let's review. By definition:

God is uncreated.

God is the Creator of the universe

God is eternal, having no beginning and no end. The name YHWH (which people have pronounced "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" essentially means "was, is and will be." Jesus said: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."

God is good. "The Lord is good" Nahum 1:7 NKJ, Psalm 145:9 See also here to learn about the God that Christians worship.

God is one God in three Persons (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit).

God is love "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love." 1 John 4:8 NKJ

When you posit a Christian God that is not good, it makes no sense, because that the Christian God is by definition good. It is precisely as though you had said: "Suppose that the number three is an even number. Then wouldn't it be even?" Well, yeah, but it wouldn't be three any more.

By the same reasoning, your suggestion that we imagine that God is evil is nonsensical. Your question is essentially, "If God were evil, would He be evil?" Well, yeah, but then He would not be the God that I and countless other Christians worship.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler was either referring to one of his pagan demon-gods, or, more likely, he was insincerely referring to God. The real God was not on Hitler's side.

[uberllama42]

65. All of that is irrelevant

I am familiar with the Christian concept of God (or at least, the flavor of God you have described). You haven't answered my question, all of the information you provided is extraneous, and your even-number analogy doesn't make any sense.

I understand your desire to avoid saying that there are any circumstances under which what the Nazis did would have been justified. In order to do so, you must either dodge the question or contradict yourself, so you have chosen to do the former.

[John Gauger]

90. And there's the contradiction we've been waiting for.

UL did not say that the Christian god was evil. He asked about the implications of god ordering the Holocaust. You assumed that if god had indeed ordered the Holocaust then he would have been evil. This is a direct contradiction of your earlier statement.

[Evoman]

91. So?

All that means is that if god DID order the holocaust, then the holocaust is good, because what god wants by definition is good. And thats not even bringing up your stupid, irrational "definition" argument, which is the intellectual equivalent of "It is this way because I say so, and I say so because it is this way".

[Zebedeo]

93. Nope

You atheists are always positing a twisted conception of God - because when you confront the one that actually exists and that people like me believe in, you have nothing valid to say.

So you make up a "straw man god," and then you poke holes in it for fun. What a sad waste of time.

[Evoman]

94. Uh huh.....you still defending child killing Zeb?

Hey, if god can be responsible for the death of children, whats a few jews anyways? Maybe god wants a new chapter in the bible called The Gospel According to Hitler.

[struggle4progress]

85. Then they should have argued persistently with their Lord

[Occam Bandage]

30. ...and we just discovered the fatal reductio-ad-absurdum of relativism. Good job.

[Jim__]

33. Do you believe in an absolute moral law?

Can you state an absolute moral law that directly affects human behavior? I say "directly affects" because it's easy to state moral laws like "love God" or "do good", but that is not demanding any specific moral behavior by people.

[enki23]

44. you use that latin phrase. i do not think it means (at least in this case) what you think it means

.

[enki23]

43. since when does it require a moral absolute to condemn something?

i reject that particular premise, and with it the entire argument. not only does it not require an actual "moral absolute" (whatever that would actually mean), it does not even require belief in a moral absolute. this is now, and has always been an incredibly silly argument.

oh, and don't bother playing around with the definition of the word condemn (or choose a similar but slightly different word for "disapprove of"); for example, if you operationally define condemn to mean "to claim a thing is opposed to an absolute moral law", you'll only find yourself going in circles.

[Jim__]

45. It's not an argument. It's a question about a state of affairs.

As stated in the OP:

... He writes about a philosophy professor who reports that none of his students are Holocaust deniers, but an increasing number are even worse: “They acknowledge the fact, even deplore it, but cannot bring themselves to condemn it morally.” Who are they to say that the Nazis were morally wrong? And so it is also with apartheid, slavery, and ethnic cleansing. For these students, passing moral judgment “is to be a moral ‘absolutist,’ and having been taught that there are no absolutes, they now see any judgment as arbitrary, intolerant, and authoritarian.”

So, according to this philosophy professor, an increasing number of his students refuse to morally condemn the nazis. The professor ascribes this to their having been taught that there are no moral absolutes. Dacey recognizes this as a problem of modern western life. Secularists (Dacey is a secularist) have removed questions of conscience and morality from public discussion. He believes this leaves people unwilling to make moral judgements about others actions. Dacey believes that the solution is to restore moral discussion to the public square. I haven't read Dacey's book, but, presumably, once we've restored moral discussion to the public square, we could legislate based on this.

The implications are that if we recognize morality as a personal matter, then we are ultimately unable to morally condemn anyone. If we make morality a matter of public concern, then we can and should legislate morality. I'm not sure that I accept either conclusion as true; but Dacey present evidence that it is, one example being the philosophy students.

[enki23]

47. it says they deplore the holocaust

what is the difference, then, between "deploring" something and "condemning it morally?" because to me, it seems to say they *do* condemn it, but have been convinced by someone that to "condemn something morally" would require an absolute moral authority. since they don't believe in an absolute moral law, they can't "condemn it morally" in that sense. the professor, however, admits they "deplore" it. "deplore" is a word which is very close in meaning with the usual definition of "condemn."

the students do condemn the nazi genocide, while at the same time admitting that they are doing so according to a moral code they accept, but for which they do not believe there is an absolute authority. the professor, on the other hand, is not concerned about whether they disapprove of the nazi genocide, an inescapably moral judgement. he already admitted they do. the only thing he doesn't like is that they do not believe in moral absolutes. the nazis are a red herring. he used them to inject a bit of emotional blackmail to try to get people to agree with a philosophical position that is not in any way dependent on how one feels about what the nazis did. he godwined himself from the start. and he did exactly what i said not to do in my first post. he got the students to (at least partially) buy in to his bs by making a circular argument out of his definition of "condemn morally."

in other words, the students are right. the (possibly apocryphal?) professor is wrong. the rest is semantic bullshittery. the end.

note: that doesn't mean some of the students might not likewise have mistaken impressions about this. they could be half right. they might take him at his (bullshit) word that you can't condemn something without believing there is an absolute moral authority for it. if they believe that part, but also believe (rightly) that there is no such thing as an absolute moral authority, they may come to some silly, possibly even pernicious conclusions. but that doesn't make the professor's argument. it simply shows one of the problems with what he is trying to sell.

[enki23]

53. on the other hand...

you could be making an argument entirely about the desirability of believing in moral absolutes. you can try to make that argument without addressing whether the argument is true or false. if that is your only goal here, then you should say so. the argument should go something like: it is important that people believe in an absolute moral code, because the consequences of believing otherwise are very bad. that's the only sort of argument about this you can make in which the consequences are relevent to the argument. but your entire argument must then be to demonstrate that those consequences are desirable, and are in fact going to be associated with such belief (or lack of it). you can't fall back on absolute morality as an answer to the desirability question, or we're once again back at the truth problem, for which consequences are irrelevant.

do people who don't believe in absolute moral codes behave in ways that have worse consequences than would be the case if they *did* believe in such? this, of course, actually *does* beg the question: which absolute moral code are you talking about? because the consequences can only be absolutely desirable or absolutely not desirable based on another (usually, though not necessarily the same) absolute moral code. to avoid the truth problem and stick entirely with the desirability question, you'll have to stick with a subjective definition of desirable. and you are still going to have to show *empirically* that the belief you propose will have the effects you say it will have. in practice, you probably will lapse back into the truth argument, and will end up saying something equivalent to we will be more godly if we believe there is such a thing as being godly, or we will be more objectively moral if we believe there is such a thing as objectively moral. the answer to that is why would we want people to be more like what you claim is objectively moral? and we fall back into the circle.

so to avoid addressing the truth question, you are simply going to have to argue that belief in objective morality will have good consequences according to your subjective idea of them, and hope to find sufficient consensus with the rest of us. you could say this group of people will behave in ways which i believe to be desirable if they believe there is such a thing as being objectively moral. similarly, you could be one of those who thinks belief in a particular religion will have positive consequences according to a different absolute moral code, or even just your subjective moral code. this is the usual sort of consequentialist argument for pushing religion, people will be more likely behave in ways that i believe to be moral (or possibly that are objectively moral according to a different system) if they believe in <foo> religion (or religions). even so, you are left with having to empirically show that the consequences will, in fact, follow from the belief. and even after *all* that, you'll still have to convince me, and others who *are* actually interested in the truth of these things, that the moral standard by which you judge the consequences (the subjectivity of which you aren't going to be able to hide from everyone) is desirable enough, and that the benefits sufficiently outweigh any negative consequences, to agree with you. that is, if you don't want us arguing with you in public about how it's actually all bullshit.

anyway, the article says the students deplore the holocaust. their lack of belief in objective morality didn't stop them from making a moral judgement, and it's a moral judgement that the great majority of us agree with. it's only one data point. it's an anecdote, and possibly an apocryphal one at that. but it backs up neither the supposed truth of objective morality nor the supposed consequences of moral relativism.

[ZombieHorde]

66. It sounds like people are making this situation more difficult than it really is.

Either you're cool with what they did, or your not.

The rest of that stuff is just philosophical bullshit.

[elshiva]

99. Yes.

[struggle4progress]

67. The claim, that there is no knowledge when there is no absolute certainty, is simply idiotic

No practical realm of knowledge is governed by absolutely-known rules: everything that is done, is done by someone who is only imperfectly aware at the time of the actual circumstances and possible outcomes. In any practical circumstance, one devotes as much time as is available to understanding the situation and the options it apparently presents, chooses a desired outcome, and then acts: to insist that we must not form judgments and make choices about our behavior, whenever our awareness and understanding is limited, is to insist that we never form any ideas and never undertake any action

A question, such as Were the nazis morally wrong?, is not terribly helpful because it does not focus on real historical circumstances, and it is not clear what contribution one could make by "answering" the question. The real object of a moral argument is to encourage someone to change behavior. So the effort of crafting a watertight moral argument against nazism might have been worth the effort in Germany at that time, if the nazis themselves had been susceptible to moral argument -- but historical evidence suggests that the nazis ignored such moral arguments. If the arguments were ineffective then, so it seems even more pointless to spend time crafting such arguments against nazism today

Of course, if moral argument do not work in such circumstances, then certain ethical issues still confront anyone who is caught in those circumstances, and these ethical issues must then be resolved in some way besides moral argumentation -- that is, by choosing some course of action beyond mere words. Thus, if one hopes to gain any ethical insights from that tragic period, one should ask how particular people attempted to resolve the ethical issues presented their particular circumstances: there should be no scarcity of material available for the investigation, because the period involves millions of people over many years

[Jim__]

68. Do you see such a claim being made somewhere?

As to the purpose of the question, the professor is, ultimately, questioning what the effect of teaching that there are no moral absolutes is. The contention being made by the professor is that students taught to accept that belief often conclude that the actions of others cannot be morally judged - i.e. there is no claim being made about knowledge.

I disagree that the importance of understanding the question about the nazis is to resolve ethical issues. The importance of understanding the question goes to an understanding of our very nature. Very few Germans refused to follow the nazis. Why? Is that due to some flaw in the German character? Heidegger went along. So did Heisenberg.

Everyone condemns the nazis and most people condemn those who went along. That's the easy answer. We're all much better than that. We'd all behave differently. Of course we would. No need to think about that. It's idiotic to question any of that. It has to be.

[struggle4progress]

73. For practical purposes, one does not need moral absolutes any more than one needs

a perfect and error-free physics

For purely aesthetic and intellectual reasons, one might naturally try to improve a moral theory to render it more clear-cut and decisive, exactly as one might try to improve physics to make it more accurate and more generally applicable

But neither moral theory nor physical theory will ever be perfected. It would be ridiculous to hold that a physical theory was completely unreliable and useless because it was only approximate and of limited applicability -- and it is equally ridiculous to hold that a moral theory is completely unreliable and useless because "it is not absolute"

[Jim__]

75. Either you're deliberately raising strawman arguments, or you're completely missing the point. - n/t

[struggle4progress]

79. In my view, you ask a non-productive question "Are there any absolute moral standards?"

I regard the question as non-productive because (1) it is too ill-posed to admit any definitive answer and (2) no answer to the question has any useful consequence

You apparently believe that belief in moral absolutes would enable us to condemn the nazis, and that providing a basis for condemnation of the nazis is a minimum test for the adequacy of a proposed morality. But you question whether we can condemn the nazis in the absence of absolute moral standards

I dislike this framing for many reasons. (1) I do not consider that the ability to justify abstract condemnation is an appropriate test of the adequacy of a proposed morality. The object of morality is to enable people to live meaningful lives together in community. Condemnation may sometimes play a role and certainly can be an appropriate reaction to certain behaviors, but it is not always the tactic of choice -- and in many circumstances it is grossly inadequate. It can be a popular tactic when it allows the condemning party to enjoy a sense of moral superiority at little personal cost. The object of condemnation is to re-enforce certain norms, either by encouraging the condemned to change behavior to avoid shame or by encouraging others to avoid the condemned behavior to avoid shame. Condemnation therefore has value only in context, and it is worthless if those who are condemned do not take the condemnation seriously. Condemnation of the nazis might have had some value before they seized power, by discouraging others from allying with them. As the nazis consolidated power, it became increasingly clear that condemnation of them was morally inadequate and that much more substantial forms of moral resistance were needed. If you are waiting for me to say today that I morally condemn various nazi atrocities, I have no objection to saying so -- but it is decades too late for my cheap words to have any effect. (2a) Your logic is weak, when you assert that belief in moral absolutes enables us to condemn the nazis. The nazis themselves appear to have been uncompromising absolutists, and their absolutism certainly did not lead them to condemn nazism; I suppose I could extensively wallow in this (and related) verbal swamps but it is not worth the time, since even substantial efforts seem unlikely to produce much insight. (2b) Perhaps insisting on a dichotomy between "relative morals" and "absolute morals" is non-productive. The problem of how to make moral choices always occurs in real contexts, no two of which are identical and none of which really coincide with any predefined abstract template. Typically, a unique ideal outcome is not obtainable, so one must choose between a variety of non-ideal alternatives: then an "absolute" morality has no actual practical utility. (3) If one does not really need morality to provide the abstract right to condemn the nazi atrocities, one might still want a psychological scheme that fosters the ability to mount an effective resistence. And why should one think any absolutism is required for that? In fact, in many cases, the moral issues become completely self-evident once the facts are established, and an absolutist perspective is likely to interfere with the ability to get the facts straight. If one wants to act morally in a current context, one must try to see the current context clearly, since otherwise one does not know what the real options are; similarly, if one wishes to investigate moral questions surrounding historical events, one must determine which actual people one is considering and in what context they actually lived

[Jim__]

81. Well that's not the question I asked.

Whether an answer to the question has any useful consequence is somewhat beside the point. Many philosophical questions have remained unanswered for a couple of thousand years. However, the questions remain well-worth asking.

Condemnation may sometimes play a role and certainly can be an appropriate reaction to certain behaviors, but it is not always the tactic of choice -- and in many circumstances it is grossly inadequate.

I agree that condemnation may be grossly inadequate. I believe that it is grossly inadequate in this circumstance. I also believe that the implication from both the anonymous philosphy professor, from Austin Dacey, and from Richard Neuhaus is that condemnation in this case serves some useful purpose. My fear is that easy moral condemnation hides an extremely unpleasant truth about nazis, totalitarians, the Khmer Rouge, and, in general, the history of the human race. An unpleasant truth that had best be faced. We've experienced enough mass murder of innocents that it should be obvious that the real issue is not one of morals. In other words, the philosophy students may well be on to something.

Your logic is weak, when you assert that belief in moral absolutes enables us to condemn the nazis.

The logical weakness is yours. To accept that there is a moral absolute is not the same thing as accepting that everyone who believes in a moral absolute, believes in the same moral absolute. The point is, if you accept a moral absolute, you can use it to judge anyone under any circumstance. That doesn't mean that having a moral absolute is a particularly good thing.

The problem of how to make moral choices always occurs in real contexts, no two of which are identical and none of which really coincide with any predefined abstract template. Typically, a unique ideal outcome is not obtainable, so one must choose between a variety of non-ideal alternatives: then an "absolute" morality has no actual practical utility.

The nazi problem transcends morality. It's important to recognize that.

[struggle4progress]

84. In fact, it is exactly the question you asked: it is the first question in the body of your OP

A question might remain unanswered for a long time and yet be useful to answer: this is frequently the case, for example, in mathematics, where very precise but technically hard questions abound

The actual importance of any question can be judged by determining what one could do with a good answer. If a question is a good question, even an approximate answer may be useful. On the other hand, if answering a question is expected to yield nothing useful, then the question is a complete waste of time

A question might long remain unanswered for a reason, other than some intrinsic difficulty associated with the importance of the question: a question might long remain unanswered because it is a misleading or vague or meaningless. A well-known example is the silly How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?, which has long remained unanswered -- simply because it is really not a good question. Many old philosophical questions similarly remain unanswered because they are somehow poorly posed: philosophical inquiry typically yields no truths about humans or our world but rather merely exposes the carelessness and sloppiness of our everyday language, which enables us to utter syntactically correct sentences which may be entirely content-free. Rectifying this sloppiness may, of course, be profitable: Godel certainly put to good use his realization that the epistemological paradoxes (such as the liar paradox) could be resolved by distinguishing the "true" from the "provable" -- but the progress came from understanding in what sense the original problem involved sloppy thinking

Philosophical inquiry cannot shed useful light on any problems posed by nazi atrocities. Insight into those events or similar events cannot be obtained by pure abstract thinking. Nor can it be obtained by apocryphal anecdotes about alleged attitudes held by students of an anonymous philosophy professor, since such anecdotes are essentially as opaque and intangible as any other urban legend. Insight can only come from examining actual people in their actual circumstances, by direct interaction with the living or by some historical inquiry

.

[Jim__]

95. You're making a claim, but you are not supporting it.

Philosophical inquiry cannot shed useful light on any problems posed by nazi atrocities. Insight into those events or similar events cannot be obtained by pure abstract thinking. Nor can it be obtained by apocryphal anecdotes about alleged attitudes held by students of an anonymous philosophy professor, since such anecdotes are essentially as opaque and intangible as any other urban legend. Insight can only come from examining actual people in their actual circumstances, by direct interaction with the living or by some historical inquiry

The nazis were actual people and both the events leading up to WWII and WWII itself are real events. They are historical events, but not abstract events. The question of whether or not we can judge the nazis is a fairly common one. The answer from many people is that the nazis were immoral; therefore the solution to this situation (and many historically similar situations) is to be a moral person. In my opinion, that is incorrect, and potentially catastrophically incorrect.

Almost all the Germans followed the nazis. People generally fall in line when a totalitarian regime takes power. This is not a moral failing on the part of these people. It is, in my opinion, a fact of human nature. It is a fact that we may take some steps to address. We don't address the real issue when we claim it is a moral problem.

[struggle4progress]

96. I object to your lack of precision. It is rather like waving a blurry photo of Auschwitz, taken

at some distance away, and asking for the viewer to render a moral judgment on the people inside the fence. But no actual meaning can be obtained apart from the details. Only the stories of specific concrete people can produce anything useful

You say: Almost all the Germans followed the nazis. People generally fall in line when a totalitarian regime takes power. This is not a moral failing on the part of these people. It is, in my opinion, a fact of human nature. It is a fact that we may take some steps to address. But we cannot learn lessons from history if we pursue history with such an unconscionable lack of precision: your preferred level of abstraction ("the nazis were actual people" and "WWII was a real event") provides only a fuzzy and distant snapshot, which shows nothing useful

The nazi period lasted over a decade and involved millions of people. It is quite generally recognized that the period was associated with horrific crimes, which required the participation of many people. Such judgments, however, did not spring from any abstract philosophical inquiry but from detailed knowledge of particular circumstances

A bald assertion, such as "People generally fall in line when a totalitarian regime takes power," accomplishes nothing. What does it mean "to fall in line"? Who "falls in line," to what extent, and why? Who does not "fall in line"? Who changes sides and why?

You apparently believe either that moral considerations are irrelevant to behavior and that no appeal to moral considerations can play any significant role in such circumstances. Again, I object to your preferred level of abstraction. The fact that abstractions can be useful does not imply that abstractions are always a useful tool. To be useful, abstractions must somehow represent specific phenomena. It is simply impossible, to generalize meaningfully about the potential role of moral considerations in the context of the Third Reich, without first carefully choosing a number of very specific biographical instances for study. Quite a number of different phenomena may actually be involved: some people might have no moral sense; still others might attempt to reason morally but reason accepting propaganda as fact; others might find conflicting moral obligations or self-justify ("if I resist my children will be orphaned"), and so on. Abstract philosophical thought, divorced from careful consideration of actual human circumstance, cannot help us here

[Jim__]

97. You call for specific biographic information ignores reality.

Almost all Germans participated. We can pretend that's a moral, or some other, failing of the German people. But that ignores history. The nazis were hardly the first totalitarian regime to have people "fall in line" - i.e. do what the regime tells them to do.

Or, take recent US history. How many Americans believe the killing of a million Iraqis is a legitimate act of national security? And, in the US, real protest is not particularly dangerous. Yet, how many Americans did anything effective to stop it?

Of course, before we do anything to address the issue of the mass murder of innocents by modern armies, we can call for a study of the biographies of all the people involved, either directly or indirectly. Or, we can face a reality, entire nations engage in mass murder of innocents; and we can try to come up with a resolution for that. It's not an abstract problem and it doesn't require specific biographical information to take some action.

[struggle4progress]

98. Okaay. You've convinced me that you're just bullshitting. Good day. eom

[Unvanguard]

76. "Absolute" does not mean "complete" or "perfect."

It means "binding regardless of perspective."

We can have imperfect, incomplete, limited knowledge of absolute morality.

[struggle4progress]

89. Semantic games are pointless. In my view, ethics is a subject like physics but

has different ontological prerequisites: whereas physics concerns only the material world, ethics involves relationships between sentient beings

One might profitably practice physics, without believing that the same physical laws held exactly everywhere and always. Our experience is finite in space and time, no two physical contexts are ever actually identical, and our skill is limited. Yet an approximate physics, for which one makes no absolute claims, can nevertheless be useful

In an entirely similar manner, one might not require a "binding regardless of perspective" formulation in order to regard ethics as a profitable art: our experience with other sentient beings is circumscribed by our finitude, no two relationships are ever actually identical, and our insight is limited. Yet an approximate ethics, for which one makes no absolute claims, could nevertheless be practical and important

[Unvanguard]

69. Yes, there are absolute moral standards. Yes, we can condemn the Nazis as evil.

Horrifically, disgustingly, abhorrently evil.

[enki23]

78. Alright, once again then: this is horseshit.

First, the Professor defines "condemn morally" as something other than "deplore".

“They acknowledge the fact, even deplore it, but cannot bring themselves to condemn it morally

Deplore (American Heritage Dictionary)
1. To feel or express strong disapproval of; condemn: "Somehow we had to master events, not simply deplore them" (Henry A. Kissinger).
2. To express sorrow or grief over.
3. To regret; bemoan.

Condemn (American Heritage Dictionary)
1. To express strong disapproval of: condemned the needless waste of food.
2. To pronounce judgment against; sentence: condemned the felons to prison.
3. To judge or declare to be unfit for use or consumption, usually by official order: condemn an old building.
4. To lend credence to or provide evidence for an adverse judgment against: were condemned by their actions.
5. Law To appropriate (property) for public use.

Neither of those requires a moral absolute. The word condemn is, in fact, almost exactly synonymous with the word Deplore in any sense in which the students could be rationally using them. However, he says they do deplore, but don't "condemn morally". By "condemn morally," the students (or the storyteller) must mean something beyond "to express strong disapproval of." I can think i can make a pretty safe assumption, without further clarification, that "comdemn morally" is interpreted by the students to mean "To express strong disapproval of AND to declare to be morally wrong according to a moral absolute." They satisfy the first condition, according to the professor, but do not satisfy the second. So they feel they have to say "no," given the definition of "condemn morally" they appear to be using. In other words, all this says is that people who don't believe in absolute morality will often refuse to say they believe in absolute morality. That's it. That's all. The Nazis are a red herring.

A much more useful question to ask would be: would they have stopped an ongoing genocide if they could do so by simply pushing a button? Given that they "deplore" the fact of the Holocaust, I have very little doubt that the majority of this person's moral relativist students would answer "yes" if asked this on a questionnaire. I would, and I'm not silly enough to believe there's some absolute moral code flitting about in the ether for us to discover. And so my existence disproves the silly notion that taking action against behavior I deplore requires believing it is contrary to a moral absolute. Almost all, if not actually all those students would be with me. The only remaining question, which this anecdote says nothing whatoever about, is whether believing in moral absolutes makes you more or less likely to take action against behavior you deplore, and whether your philosophical position will affect the amount of personal sacrifice you would be willing to make in order to take that action. Those are questions purely about consequence, not about which position is correct. And in any case, this anecdote gives us nothing at all helpful in answering them.

[Jim__]

80. Editing the response. I may have to insert a new response due to time limits on editing.

[Jim__]

82. Many people consider philosophical questions to be outside the realm of their interest.

Most intelligent people with such an opinion understand that just because a particular philosphical question is outside their interest, does not indicate anything about the general relevance of the question.

This question was noted by an anonymous philosophy professor, included by Austin Dacey (another philosophy professor) both in his book and in the excerpt from his book that he included in Free Inquiry. The question was explicitly mentioned by Richard Neuhaus in his review of the book. The fact that you think the question to be horseshit is singularly unimpressive.

[enki23]

86. Can you at least *pretend* to respond to what I actually wrote?

I didn't say the question was horseshit. Incidentally, which question was that again, whether there *are* moral absolutes, which you previously claimed wasn't the issue here, or what the consequences of not believing in them (whether true or not) might be, or some muddled combination of the two?

What I'm trying to say is *actually* horseshit about all this isn't either of those questions. It's that the anecdote, *even as written* does not say what it is assumed by many (including the writer, so far as I can tell from the excerpt) to be saying about *any* combination of those questions.

Also, your response to a previous post of mine was that this was about the "situation" rather than about the reality of whether there is such a thing as a moral absolute. My question is, what situation? There is no situation, even as written here. It's misleadingly assumed to be a problem, and presented as a problem. But if you read it carefully, you discover (I feel I have to repeat myself endlessly till you actually respond to this) that the problem this anecdote is supposed to illustrate is not actually illustrated by the anecdote.

As for the questions in your original post, I've already answered them. You then claimed the original post wasn't about that, it was about the "situation" whatever that situation might actually be. Your questions were So, if there are no moral absolutes, can we condemn the nazis? Why would modern day philosophy students think that they can't? What moral standard can we use to condemn the nazis?

Again, in short form:
A. Yes. B. This is a "when did you stop beating your wife" question. The anecdote does not demonstrate any such thing to be the case. All it demonstrates is that they are using a moral absolutist definition of the word "condemn." Nothing more. C. Whichever one we choose at the time. If you define "moral code" in such a way that requires a belief in an absolute standard of morality, then we can't use any standard at all. But if you define "moral code" in a way that doesn't make this argument go in circles, you can instead say that a moral code is simply a personal, or group consensus description of behavior that I (or we) disapprove of.

In fact, only part A is a philosophical question. B simply asks us to speculate about the motives of anecdotal people for a belief the anecdote itself hasn't even actually demonstrated they hold. And C isn't a valid question at all. It includes the premise that a "moral standard" is only able to be applied to another's behavior if you believe there is an absolute moral standard and then asks if people who don't believe in absolute moral standard can apply a moral standard. Rewritten with their definition of "moral standard" it simply reads: "What absolute moral standard can people who don't believe in absolute moral standards apply to Nazis?" It's like saying "If atheists don't believe in god, then how can they pray for starving children?" The bastards just don't care enough about starving children to pray for them. And that's worse than being a holocaust denier.

[Xenotime]

88. IMO, no. Who is to say they had to live by our morals?

[On the Road]

92. "Moral Absolutist" is Not Redundant

You can be moral without being an absolutist.

Allowing historical context and a variety of beliefs should not result in indifference and unconditional positive regard.

[Name removed]

100. Deleted message

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