Philosophy Now Forum

duszek wrote:How about this outlook then:

"The world is bad and I will destroy it."

Well, if the Abrahamic religions are to be believed, that's what god did in the flood and will do again in the end days. There are people that believe such a god is good. In my opinion, people who believe so are not immoral, they are mental.

Does the word "immoral" have an application in the universe at all then ?

Because if not, then this is merely an empty shell and can be deleted from the dictionary.

Well, if it were not for human beings, there wouldn't be a dictionary to delete it from. 'Moral' is no different from any other word, in that it only means what people mean by it. I don't believe in any transcendental, metaphysical, universal absolute moral good; some version of the golden rule is perfectly adequate. It's the law and politics that protect morality, not religion.

uwot wrote:Well, if it were not for human beings, there wouldn't be a dictionary to delete it from. 'Moral' is no different from any other word, in that it only means what people mean by it. I don't believe in any transcendental, metaphysical, universal absolute moral good; some version of the golden rule is perfectly adequate. It's the law and politics that protect morality, not religion.

I think morality protects, or should protect, law and politics.

tbieter wrote:I think morality protects, or should protect, law and politics.

I suspect many people would agree that the law should be founded on morality; the difficulty is to reach consensus on the morality. As a secular social democrat, I am grateful for the protection the law provides against other people's morality.