RE: Look out for the reality enforcers!
You're not defending reality is my point. You're defending your reality. There is nothing wrong with that, and we all do it to some degree, but in my opinion, some are more open to letting in alternative perspectives than others.
I touched on the fact that from a scientific perspective, reality could be argued to be fixed at times. However, 2+2 only equals 4 in decimal counting, and water is wet, but whether that wetness is welcomed, what temperature it is and how it tastes is down to an individual. And water is wet is a very human perspective and distinction. You'll be telling me the sky is blue, next!
People do have concepts of good and evil, and there will be a broad convergence, but there are very few moral absolutes. It's the same for justice and injustice too - these are subjective, often deeply so.
To argue that injustice/justice and good/evil are absolutes means that yes, you are indeed a reality enforcer.
I am all for a good debate, by the way. I write to have my views questioned, and am very happy to re-appraise them. You haven't convinced me to do so yet, though!
I liked this - I'm one for being there are no absolutes in reality. The terrorist can be a saviour and warrior in his home country, the psychopath that experiments on and kills homeless people can also be seen as a revolutionary in modern medicine, and so, so many other things!
There are no absolutes, ever.
I may podcast about this in my matrix podcast :)
Does this make me your muse?
This is all so sudden!
I think there may be a few moral absolutes...although for everything I can come up with, I think I can find an alternate way of viewing it. There must be some though, surely?
Are you absolutely sure?
Well, if you want to home in on this particular aspect of the debate...see the chat below where we are debating this very point...
As I asked previously - can you name a universal absolute? :)
As I answered below: genocide is wrong. The fact that some people have committed it does not change this, Ray. Is there a reasonable ethical or moral argument that can justify genocide? I can't think of one.
The question wasn't aimed at you!
But in reality - genocide is only wrong in the eye of some people; which is subjective also, but it's not absolute.
Ask some white people from the KKK if they think African Americans should be extinct :P
Yes, but Ray, you could make the argument that rape and paedophilia are okay (not that you would think that!) based on that logic! I think we may be having a semantic argument here. What I see as absolute, you don't!
Oh personally I definitely have absolutes. All of my morals are absolute. I'm looking at it in the wider perspective - as if I was a pinprick in a massive haystack (which we are in essence)
Yeah, I am still not seeming to convey what I mean!
What you, I, or anyone else may think morally isn't terribly relevant. What I mean by a "moral absolute" is a "rule" that cannot be reasonably challenged from an ethical or moral perspective. By anyone.
Returning to genocide - I cannot see such an angle that someone (absolutely anyone!) could reasonably posit to suggest that genocide is morally acceptable. I don't care what the KKK or Hitler might say - their position is not reasonable.
If one could come up with a scenario where one million people had to be sacrificed to save ten million people, then this would qualify as a reasonable ethical justification. I cannot see this scenario existing though!
So my position is that genocide not being acceptable is a moral absolute. There is no reasonable justification to advocate genocide.
Paedophilia and rape are the same. Killing, not so much! There are definite grey areas, here...
I think that sums it up, the grey area thing. Most things are a shade of grey. A few things are not.