I basically agree. I would describe a moral law as a pendulum swinging between “this is very bad and everyone doing it should be punished” and “this is very good and everyone saying otherwise should be punished”, according to the historical and social context. It probably doesn’t swing truly randomly, but there’s no reason for it to swing always in the same direction.
Also, note that if you look on a thousand-years timescale, acceptance of homosexuality did not actually advance in a straight path (take a look at Ancient Greeks). We live in a context were the homosexuality acceptance pendulum is swinging toward more acceptance. But push the pendulum too much, and you’ll end up invoking the ban of Dante’s Divine Comedy because it sends gay people to Hell (I definitely don’t count that as moral progress).
More generally, I hold the view that morality is mostly a conformity thing. Some people for some reason manage to make the pendulum swing, and everyone else is more or less forced to chase it. Imagine waking up in a Matrix pod, and being told that no one in the real world believes in gay marriage, that homosexuality is obviously wrong and it’s still firmly on the official list of mental illnesses (with absolutely zero gay activist in the world and plenty of people around proudly declaring themselves as ex-gay). Would your belief still hold in this scenario? I don’t think that mine would last for long.
I basically agree. I would describe a moral law as a pendulum swinging between “this is very bad and everyone doing it should be punished” and “this is very good and everyone saying otherwise should be punished”, according to the historical and social context. It probably doesn’t swing truly randomly, but there’s no reason for it to swing always in the same direction.
Also, note that if you look on a thousand-years timescale, acceptance of homosexuality did not actually advance in a straight path (take a look at Ancient Greeks). We live in a context were the homosexuality acceptance pendulum is swinging toward more acceptance. But push the pendulum too much, and you’ll end up invoking the ban of Dante’s Divine Comedy because it sends gay people to Hell (I definitely don’t count that as moral progress).
More generally, I hold the view that morality is mostly a conformity thing. Some people for some reason manage to make the pendulum swing, and everyone else is more or less forced to chase it. Imagine waking up in a Matrix pod, and being told that no one in the real world believes in gay marriage, that homosexuality is obviously wrong and it’s still firmly on the official list of mental illnesses (with absolutely zero gay activist in the world and plenty of people around proudly declaring themselves as ex-gay). Would your belief still hold in this scenario? I don’t think that mine would last for long.