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But let's see if I'm conscious enough yet to string together a few coherent sentences.
Well, if that's the case, then we're totally screwed, since they're pretty much all we have to help us make that determination. Barring appeals to revelation by supernatural entities or other ultimate powers, how do you propose that we, as finite, fallible, perception-limited creatures can make any assessments about the absolute morality you propose? Please don't assert another mathematical analogy here, unless you can first demonstrate that absolute morality exists and second that it behaves according to similarly rigid rules as mathematics.
What you're asking me to do is something I believe I've already said I cannot do - because if I could then we wouldn't be having this discussion. I can't really appeal to God (because 1) I don't believe in a God and 2) even if I did, it's pretty clear that morality is independent of God). I can't assert another mathematical analogy either (because 1) I've already used up the one I knew and 2) I suck at mathematics). But complete moral relativism strikes me as silly (and perhaps moral absolutism strikes you to be silly as well), and my reason for that is precisely the conclusion to your argument: that we have no way of determining the goodness or badness of other's actions. To use my Hitler example again, it strikes me as inherently disgusting to say that we have no way of determining what Hitler did was right or wrong - he was responsible for the deaths of millions upon millions of human beings. His rationale was that he was "cleansing the world". In his own eyes, I'm sure that he was doing what he thought was the moral thing to do. But are you seriously asserting that you have no idea one way or the other whether or not the Holocaust was a moral or immoral act? Because if you can say that and keep a straight face, then I, for one, say you are a scary cat. If you do (or ever have) had the same feeling that I (and many others do) that what he did was immoral, then I would take that as evidence for at least the possibility of an existence of an absolute morality.
Godwin's law notwithstanding, you've articulated the situation very nicely! Since we have no way (and I mean literally no way) to determine the objective, absolute "goodness" or "badness" of anything, we have no justification for declaring any deed absolutely "good" or "bad." Do you assert otherwise? On what possible basis? How, in your view, can we glimpse this "absolute morality" as you conceive it to exist?
All we can do is declare an action to be utterly incompatible with our own sense of right and wrong, to the extent that we are able to assess it.
I think I responded to most of this above. But to go a bit further, what you seem to be advocating is something to this effect: A drugged out criminal who just shot four cops and ran over 16 preschool children in his SUV while they were on recess is neither good nor bad. We have no justification for calling that action a "bad" action. We may think it's bad, but that doesn't mean it is.
So, if I'm understanding you correctly, it sure seems to make a whole lot of human civilization pretty damn silly. Take our penal system for example - who's to say if those Kenneth Lay did a right or wrong thing? It might of been right in his eyes, so then does that mean we should punish him for trying to do the right thing? Or going further, even our methods of rewarding "good" behavior - even something as simple as a pat on the back. I suppose we have no justification then, since all of our conceptions of right and wrong differ (I agree with that statement by the way, I just happen to think some people are pretty whacked out when it comes to morality. By the way, I don't think I have my finger on the pulse of morality either).
You're confusing individual morality with societal morality. Perhaps Murderer X can't be held accountable under his own morality, but the morality of society-at-large comes into play as well. Anyone choosing to exist in a society agrees by definition to abide by that society's rules—that's the very same social contract to which you refer, and morality hardly even enters into it. And a person can't simply opt out of the social contract and thereafter kill a member of that society; to do so (to interact in that fashion with a member of the society) is to deliberately maintain the social contract, with all the benefits and requirements thereof. Society as a whole thus has the power to censure or punish the person who commits a crime against that society, even if the criminal declares himself free of the contract.
Well it wouldn't be the first time I've been confused, and it probably won't be the last. But let me give you this example: Say there's a hermit, living completely on his or her own, outside of societal bounds (e.g. someone who does not "opt-in" to the social contract). Say that this hermit kills an animal (who, I'm assuming cannot take part in such a social contract) for the sheer enjoyment of inflicting pain onto another living being. Is that wrong?
Again, you're confusing individual and societal morality. Indeed, the person without a conscience may not feel accountable under his own morality, and if his were the only relevant morality, then that would be the end of it. But society's morality also gets a vote.
Ohhhh...so morality isn't completely relative. I was misunderstanding your argument (I did just wake up, after all).
That's not an agnostic position, then! You're just applying Pascal's Wager to the question of morality, and it's no more effective here than in arguing about God's existence.
And forgive me, but I'm not suggesting that accessing an absolute morality is "hard to do." Instead, I'm arguing that there is no evidence whatsoever that an absolute morality exists. If it does exist, then there is no evidence that we have access to it. Lacking such evidence, there is no reasonable way for us to conclude that it exists; such a conclusion can only be made on faith, which (again) is hardly agnostic.
And I stand by my assertion that an inaccessible morality is no different from a nonexistent morality. If you dispute this, please articulate the difference as you see it.
Well, if being an agnostic means lacking knowledge one way or the other on a topic, then I fail to see how I am not agnostic with respect to absolute morality. I think there is because the alternatives seem insufficient to me. I only say that it's wrong-headed to count it out, not that it's wrong-headed not to count it in.
And I do agree with your point that, functionally speaking, an inaccessible morality is equivalent to a nonexistent morality. But all I'm saying is that it might not be inaccessible. If you and I were living back in the 1600's (I had a dream like this last night) and I told you that in 400 years, there would be motorized vehicles and cell phones and all the trappings of modern life, you would probably look at me like I had a third eye (besides asking, 'What's a cell phone?') and say that it was impossible, that it would never happen.
Just because something seems inaccessible to us at present is not equivalent with the statement that something *is* inaccessible. You seem to be arguing for a different kind of absolutism here, one having to do with perception.
You're welcome to take issue with it, but you haven't yet given an argument that really supports your view or refutes mine.
So far, the entirety of your argument is based upon aesthetics, wherein you judge a thing "bad" if it conflicts with your aesthetic sensibility. That's not an insult—I submit that nearly everything we do is governed by that sensibility. However, it's a huge mistake to leap from "I find this deeply objectionable" to "this is absolutely evil." That way fundamentalism lies.
Whew, almost there. Still with me? Perhaps I'm wrong to call it moral absolutism, because I think that contextual information does play a part. So I'm thinking that when you hear moral absolutism, you take me as saying (Murder is *always* wrong, even if someone murders a killer to save another person's life, that is *wrong*!). I don't mean that. Perhaps a better phrase to use is objective morality. I don't think that morality is so rigid, precisely for the reason that contextual factors would seem (to me at least) to have a mitigating effect on moral culpability. I've never said anything is absolutely evil, nor will I ever say anything like that. As I agree with you again, that is the way fundamentalism lies, and fundamentalism is one scary cat.
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