Nobody would claim that I became more moral if I started stealing, killed two people for money, or turned into a notorious liar.
Nobody except every single person that ever lived. I call bullshit on this entire thread. Pretty much every culture supports these in some contexts and condones in some other contexts, with contexts differing between cultures.
Even today we have ridiculously many contexts in which killing another human being is considered morally acceptable, and consequentially equivalent inaction resulting in someone’s death hardly triggers any moral reaction at all.
Could moral absolutists name even a single action that is universally condoned by every culture? (just don’t try implicitly answering with moral context, “intentional killing” would be an acceptable answer if it was true, “murder” would not)
Did you deliberately choose the least favourable interpretation of what I have written? I have specifically included “for money” as a qualifier for universally immoral killing, which you have ignored. My point wasn’t that killing is universally immoral, but that there are patterns of behaviour whose immorality isn’t disputed by reasonable people. But fine, I think I can take your reply literally too. Do you really claim that every single person would condone if I killed two strangers and took their money? That’s just ridiculous.
I also don’t take the cultural relativist argument, especially in the context of the debate. I tried to support the idea that morality is more or less as well uniquely and precisely defined as health. Of course there are cultures which have unusual moralities, but there are cultures with unusual notions of health too (e.g. the Hinduists celebrating various physical deformities). But if you are steering the argument in this direction, please tell me in what culture I am morally entitled to kill my neighbour just because I want to occupy his house.
Nobody except every single person that ever lived. I call bullshit on this entire thread. Pretty much every culture supports these in some contexts and condones in some other contexts, with contexts differing between cultures.
Even today we have ridiculously many contexts in which killing another human being is considered morally acceptable, and consequentially equivalent inaction resulting in someone’s death hardly triggers any moral reaction at all.
Could moral absolutists name even a single action that is universally condoned by every culture? (just don’t try implicitly answering with moral context, “intentional killing” would be an acceptable answer if it was true, “murder” would not)
Did you deliberately choose the least favourable interpretation of what I have written? I have specifically included “for money” as a qualifier for universally immoral killing, which you have ignored. My point wasn’t that killing is universally immoral, but that there are patterns of behaviour whose immorality isn’t disputed by reasonable people. But fine, I think I can take your reply literally too. Do you really claim that every single person would condone if I killed two strangers and took their money? That’s just ridiculous.
I also don’t take the cultural relativist argument, especially in the context of the debate. I tried to support the idea that morality is more or less as well uniquely and precisely defined as health. Of course there are cultures which have unusual moralities, but there are cultures with unusual notions of health too (e.g. the Hinduists celebrating various physical deformities). But if you are steering the argument in this direction, please tell me in what culture I am morally entitled to kill my neighbour just because I want to occupy his house.
There are at least 20 million human beings paid to kill other human beings when right now.
Moral context in which this happens is hardly unusual.
Uh, … breathing?
Or am I taking the question too literally here? :)
To avoid looking far, Socrates considered it morally obligatory to stop breathing, and living for that matter, by drinking hemlock. There seems to be agreement that he could just as easily flee from Athens, so it was a moral choice, not something he was forced to do.
It’s all relative.