Why do liberals insist on subjective morality being laws?

Damo, your beliefs are of no more value than someone who believes murdering is ok. It's not an objective belief.
 
That does not make the valueless or incorrect. The question is, are they universal among us? We are exploring that idea. So far your answer is, "When speaking of 'not us' then they do not apply." The conversation has long moved past that to a specific question to which you still answer, 'not us' in an off-topic theme...

When would you think it was right to walk up behind a person and slice their throat without their permission?

I can think of several scenarios where I might consider it the right thing to do...

Once we get one answer then we can add more questions. Such as "When would it be okay if we knew the person innocent of crime, etc. Until we find a Universal ideal or we figure we can find a scenario where there is a way to prove subjectivity among us. Whether they are subjective or not does not mean that they are not universal when speaking of 'among us'.
 
I'm not surprised you havn't seen it Damo. I didn't watch all of it - its kinda boring. Lucas took the film he made is school and expanded upon it to make it into his first professional work. Its got Donald Pleasense in it though.

The story centers around on a drugged up society that is very much like the one in The Giver. Of course, the title character THX-1136 stops taking his drugs and becomes an enemy of the state.
 
Cypress said:
The ban on "murder" is only based on consensus, not as a "universal" principle.

Millions of people consider it fair game to murder Iraqi shia, Congalese tribesmen, Sudanese villagers, and European Jews.

Many would consider capital punishment to be state sanctioned murder.
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Damo's on the right track, I believe. There are indeed things that are universally -- or so nearly universally as to make no nevermind -- considered wrong. The taboos are often broken, it's true, but they're still considered wrong.

There are no objectively defined rights or wrongs. One can logically derive certain strictures given a set of stipulated axioms but the axioms themselves -- the moral taboos on which all law rests -- cannot be proven or disproven.

This certainly does not invalidate morality and law, however. In the human world, a cultural artifact is every bit as real as a material object.
 
OrnotBitwise said:
Damo's on the right track, I believe. There are indeed things that are universally -- or so nearly universally as to make no nevermind -- considered wrong. The taboos are often broken, it's true, but they're still considered wrong.

There are no objectively defined rights or wrongs. One can logically derive certain strictures given a set of stipulated axioms but the axioms themselves -- the moral taboos on which all law rests -- cannot be proven or disproven.

This certainly does not invalidate morality and law, however. In the human world, a cultural artifact is every bit as real as a material object.
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Exactly, but you took the direct tell them approach... I was going for the more annoying Socratic method of asking annoying questions...

:D
 
Such so-called wrongs may be viewed by a majority of people as wrong... but I don't think you can allow a majority, or even a significant group of people to give authority to so-called rights.
 
Grind said:
Such so-called wrongs may be viewed by a majority of people as wrong... but I don't think you can allow a majority, or even a significant group of people to give authority to so-called rights.
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Right now we are not talking about "Rights" we are working on whether or not there are Universal "morals" regardless of subjectivity. We are finding that there pretty much are... Even in Prison where often it is prudent to do so, they hide knowing it is a "wrong" that they are crossing that line.
 
I don't think cannibals viewed eating people as wrong, although virtually all other groups do. there is no behaviour that is universal to humans, Aside from the procreating aspects. But they don't even all use the missionary position for that and some don't even mate with the opposite sex, so that is not even universal.
 
uscitizen said:
I don't think cannibals viewed eating people as wrong, although virtually all other groups do. there is no behaviour that is universal to humans, Aside from the procreating aspects. But they don't even all use the missionary position for that and some don't even mate with the opposite sex, so that is not even universal.
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However, Cannibalism also did not fit in with the question at hand. They would attack upfront, mostly to gain the "strength" of their enemy, they did not sneak up behind and cut throats... At least not in any book I have read or in anything I have seen they didn't.

However, Hunting is entirely different than the question at hand.
 
I was just going after the statement about somethings humans consider abherrent behaviour to be universal. I don't consider any aspecct of human behaviour to be universal.
Well perhaps generalized greed and fear.
I consider those to be the two natural born human emotions/behaviours.
 
Damo to find anything to be universal you are going to have to get every single god damn human on earth to agree to a certain thing. It's not going to happen. You're wrong on this one.
 
By universal you mean everyone. That can not happen. There are always those that don't consider anything wrong. They might hide it and hide what they do to avoid being caught and punished, but they do not consider it wrong. They are pathelogical types. They will reason with you and agree with you and go along with you, but at the first opportunity they will do whatever it is they do that is immoral and wrong.
 
Grind said:
Damo to find anything to be universal you are going to have to get every single god damn human on earth to agree to a certain thing. It's not going to happen. You're wrong on this one.
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It depends entirely on "Universal", first of all we have already removed from the list the insane. Now we are looking for other exceptions. Instead of telling me how impossible it is, work with the question and answer it. What I am looking at are mores that are so close to "universal" as to have no real difference. Simple and direct cold-blooded murder is one such thing, instead of telling me how impossible it is, tell me where it was okay and we'll see if we can take it apart.
 
Gaffer said:
By universal you mean everyone. That can not happen. There are always those that don't consider anything wrong. They might hide it and hide what they do to avoid being caught and punished, but they do not consider it wrong. They are pathelogical types. They will reason with you and agree with you and go along with you, but at the first opportunity they will do whatever it is they do that is immoral and wrong.
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If they are hiding it, then they know it to be "wrong" else there would be no need to hide their impulse. Those people are acting on knowledge where they know it to be "wrong".
 
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