@Suzianne saidWell, no. If all your views about what is moral and right start and end here, right now. There is nothing permanent about a scale that changes, so suggesting improvement over time means it is moving toward something that you do not have, an unchanging scale. You have a scale that permits one, due to culture and numbers, totally justifying a lot of evil things being done to others, because they feel they are worthy of those atrocities, and any pleasure they get out of inflicting them is a bonus. You acknowledge that people can do better and worse, but compared to what, something you find acceptable?
Obvious is obvious.
[/shrug]
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@KellyJay saidThe legacy of slavery in France:
I am not sure what you are looking at and comparing things to when you suggest things are getting better? Is it how people are taking things into thier own hands to right what they think are wrongs?
quote
PARIS (AP) — For nearly two centuries after France abolished slavery, the colonial-era law that classified humans as property remained quietly in place. On Thursday, lawmakers will finally move to eliminate it.
The bill, expected to be adopted by the National Assembly, will repeal Code Noir, or Black Code, the 1685 decree King Louis XIV signed to govern slaves across France’s colonies.
The law turned human beings into chattel, allowing them to be worked, beaten, sold, raped and killed — and France never formally did away with it.
The code’s reach was total. Article 44 declared the enslaved “movable property.” Other sections ordered mutilation for those who fled, and dictated that the word of an enslaved person counted for nothing.
France ran the third-largest slave trade, shipping about 1.4 million Africans to plantations whose sugar wealth built the French cities of Nantes and Bordeaux.
end quote
source
https://apnews.com/article/france-slavery-law-code-noir-repeal-74ce7aecfdd7172bc5b54fcecf9cc789
This is moral progress, but it is slow going. We have a long way to go before we see that people are just people and stop judging people and discriminating against people on the basis of arbitrary classifications such as skin color, ethnicity, country of origin, gender-identification, religious affiliation or lack thereof, political-party affiliation or lack thereof, mental or physical handicap, etc. We have a long way to go to treat each individual as just that, something unique and precious just as he is, not as a tool or a worker-drone for corporate profits of the mega-rich. The idea of the uniqueness and dignity of each person is reflected in Kant's ethics: to treat each and every human being never as an instrument, but as an end in himself.
Now consider this:
Is this the sort of person who sets a moral standard? An example for children to emulate? An example for a whole society to emulate? It speaks volumes about America that Trump's candidacy was not over that very day.
You wonder whether it is possible to improve morally or to degenerate. Yes, both directions are possible; it is up to us to decide which direction to go. And we have some apologies to make to people(s) we have mistreated in the past.
@moonbus saidSo you think legislation is what we could go by; there is no legal slavery in the US, but crime suggests sex slavery is alive and well. Does that null and void the legality, where even a war was fought to end slavery here, where Jim Crow laws were abolished, and yet we still have prejudice in the country? There are churches professing God, yet even in them, all manner of debauchery is taking place, in our legal systems where justice is perverted for gain and power. You seem to be concerned about institutional laws, but an improvement would be if the people didn’t, in spite of all that, stop on their own, wouldn’t it, and I don’t see that in any country, do you?
The legacy of slavery in France:
quote
PARIS (AP) — For nearly two centuries after France abolished slavery, the colonial-era law that classified humans as property remained quietly in place. On Thursday, lawmakers will finally move to eliminate it.
The bill, expected to be adopted by the National Assembly, will repeal Code Noir, or Black Code, the 1685 decree King L ...[text shortened]... ich direction to go. And we have some apologies to make to people(s) we have mistreated in the past.
I’ve heard it said many times that we can talk about preferences, but that does not make something right. You can dislike one’s views on right and wrong, or another may not like yours, but unless there is some standard to compare them both to, all you have is an argument. Some may feel slavery is a just way to deal with the unworthy or unjust people, others the death penalty, but to what do we compare them, on what scale? Who says we even need to?
@KellyJay
So you think legislation is what we could go by; there is no legal slavery in the US, but crime suggests sex slavery is alive and well. Does that null and void the legality, where even a war was fought to end slavery here, where Jim Crow laws were abolished, and yet we still have prejudice in the country? There are churches professing God, yet even in them, all manner of debauchery is taking place, in our legal systems where justice is perverted for gain and power. You seem to be concerned about institutional laws, but an improvement would be if the people didn’t, in spite of all that, stop on their own, wouldn’t it, and I don’t see that in any country, do you?
Laws and legal institutions tend to reflect broadly held moral views. Laws and legal institutions are a sort of barometer indicating the moral standards people at large hold to be valid.
We don't cut off bits of people's bodies for punitive reasons. We used to, you know; it was a common form of legal and civil punishment in the Middle Ages in Europe. Still is in countries under sharia.
You see debauchery everywhere you look and complain about how fundamentally broken people are; that speaks volumes about the person doing the looking and the complaining. I try to focus on humanity's better traits and encourage them.
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@KellyJay said"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!!"
Well, no. If all your views about what is moral and right start and end here, right now. There is nothing permanent about a scale that changes, so suggesting improvement over time means it is moving toward something that you do not have, an unchanging scale. You have a scale that permits one, due to culture and numbers, totally justifying a lot of evil things being done t ...[text shortened]... cknowledge that people can do better and worse, but compared to what, something you find acceptable?
Do you think the Spanish Inquisition was just? Do you think the Crusades were just?
Just because someone calls what they are doing "following God's will" doesn't mean they are actually following God's will, does it? It's always the "people in charge" visiting terror on humanity in the name of "following God's will", and this is exactly what you do in this forum AND the Spirituality forum when you go on and on and on and on about "God's truth", and how there is a permanent, unchanging, absolute truth, when what you and these people call "truth" depends on exactly WHO is in charge, and so your total argument just fails on the face of it.
AGAIN, what you call "God's will" is NOT God's will, but your own. Conveniently. You try to argue the same exact thing you are railing against. This is hypocrisy. And on a rather large, obnoxious scale.
And AGAIN, Why TF is this still in Debates?
@moonbus saidYou have no means to gage what is getting better or worse with the populace, in addition there isn’t agreement on what is better or worse. Some people cheered at some assignations and failed attempts.
@KellyJay
[b]So you think legislation is what we could go by; there is no legal slavery in the US, but crime suggests sex slavery is alive and well. Does that null and void the legality, where even a war was fought to end slavery here, where Jim Crow laws were abolished, and yet we still have prejudice in the country? There are churches professing God, yet even in them, all ...[text shortened]... oing the looking and the complaining. I try to focus on humanity's better traits and encourage them.
@Suzianne saidWho is asking for that?
"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!!"
Do you think the Spanish Inquisition was just? Do you think the Crusades were just?
Just because someone calls what they are doing "following God's will" doesn't mean they are actually following God's will, does it? It's always the "people in charge" visiting terror on humanity in the name of "following God's will ...[text shortened]... pocrisy. And on a rather large, obnoxious scale.
And AGAIN, Why TF is this still in Debates?
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@KellyJay saidDo you not agree that abolishing slavery is a moral improvement?
You have no means to gage what is getting better or worse with the populace, in addition there isn’t agreement on what is better or worse. Some people cheered at some assignations and failed attempts.
Do you not agree that abolishing corporal punishment (flogging, caning, etc.) is a moral improvement?
Do you not agree that abolishing witch burning is a moral improvement?
Do you not agree that abolishing trial by ordeal is a moral improvement?
Do you not agree that abolishing the Spanish Inquisition is a moral improvement?
Do you not agree that abolishing chemical and biological weapons is a moral improvement?
"B... bu... but... rape and murder and sex trafficking and assassinations." Some people are under-evolved; we still have a ways to go before everyone learns to treat everyone with dignity and respect.
@moonbus saidI agree that treating others as objects to be used and abused is bad, but it is not at all abolished; sexual slavery is still happening, and I imagine all other types as well, but not as out in the open in some places as it is in others.
Do you not agree that abolishing slavery is a moral improvement?
Do you not agree that abolishing corporal punishment (flogging, caning, etc.) is a moral improvement?
Do you not agree that abolishing witch burning is a moral improvement?
Do you not agree that abolishing trial by ordeal is a moral improvement?
Do you not agree that abolishing the Spanish Inquisitio ...[text shortened]... olved; we still have a ways to go before everyone learns to treat everyone with dignity and respect.
All of your examples are not done away with; people are still getting thrown off rooftops, beheaded, shot in the streets, lying, stealing, murdering, rape these are common practices with or without the law. The nature of man has not improved, and many of the things you talk about were altered by religious ideology; human nature was corrupt in there, too, so it was not all done well, as they also had horrific crimes. So, when someone says many of the things you brought up would improve the human condition, and we would have less crime, is that just a different opinion? Not suggesting that, but you have not done anything but ask if I agree with you.
You have not shown me why those who practice them are doing something wrong, because those who do them could say we would be much better off if we punished that way instead of not.
Our nature does not always lean towards loving our fellow man, but treating each other with contempt, as objects, as less than. That has not changed, so our ability to commit crimes is no different today than at any other time. We have improved in our methods of killing; we are much more lethal at it, so not killing one way doesn't mean we have stopped in other ways. Improvements?