Originally posted by vivify
There are somethings we can be pretty damn sure of, like your statement about babies. But as a general rule, it's probably best to avoid speaking in terms of absolutes.
Some people in some contexts have tortured babies for fun - they just have.
We can share a moral standard that will always judge such behaviour to be wrong. For us that standard seems absolute.
Some people in some contexts would disagree. People can find all sorts of arguments to defend the most perverse behaviours, including the proposition that there are no moral standards except in your imagination, or perhaps the proposition that some groups of people can be treated as sub human and do not require respect. Think of the SS extermination squads in wartime Poland. They would have claimed a very strong moral code all their own to justify their behaviour. We would probably not debate the point and just prefer to shoot them . Or think of white racists in the Southern United States in the 20th Century and their lynchings and associated torture of black Americans, often after a church service and while a whole (white) community observed and approved.
We can agree that these people are mistaken. We can probably further agree that they are perverse or evil or both. But we cannot dispute that they exist and they disagree with us. If the moral standard were truly absolute it would have no exceptions. Nobody would or even could disagree.
So when you claim that your moral argument is universally correct, it is a fair claim when you intend that it is a standard to which you will never find any exceptions, but it is not a fair claim if it implies that everyone else is bound by your definitions of an absolute moral standard. Your crazy example does not manage to fit my definition of an absolute moral standard because it fails to gain universal acceptance. I wish it were otherwise.
Absolute truth
12 Jun '16 16:51
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