Is creating false guilt for profit by religions a good moral tenet?

[ReliStuPhD]

I've done in-line responses, but you don't need to respond to them all (threads get too big that way). I won't assume I "won" just because you don't comment.

I call it assisted suicide and he would go free.

You would need to call it a "mercy killing." No suicide occurs in that scene that I can see. Fonda wants to commit suicide, but can't do it herself, so she asks someone to kill her.

He would not conform to mens rea and I think a court wold let him walk.

Highly unlikely. There's plenty of case law on this. The only real grey area is when the person being killed was actively involved in the killing. Passive "please kill me" stuff doesn't typically count.

They should see it as a mercy killing. Hardly a red hearing.

It is as far as our discussion. We're talking about murder/unjustified killing, not mercy killings or suicide. It's definitely a red herring (though that's not to say it isn't an interesting discussion for some other time).

Perhaps, but all I wanted to show that that killing or murder was still subjective and not objective.

What you've shown is that we don't have a blanket prohibition on killing. We do with respect to murder, however. But OK, perhaps someone's definition of what constitutes a murder is subjective (though you still have to get around the fairly objective definition of "unlawful killing"). It does not speak to my assertion that unjustified killing is objectively wrong. What we define as unjustified killing may be subjective, but the act itself is not subjectively immoral.

As to where I get my morals, from many sources and media like Star Trek have a decent way of simplifying the message.

I don't see that they've done this, but fair enough.

" I think "murder is wrong" is an objective moral position"

Are right and wrong not subjective judgements?

No. This is what we've been debating. "Right" and "moral" are effectively synonymous ("right" is defined as "morally good, justified, or acceptable"), as are "wrong" and "immoral" ("wrong" = "unjust, dishonest, or immoral").

I have been a busy boy but what other 6 points are you talking about?

They're further up in the thread. You asked for some objective moral positions and I tossed seven out. But you certainly don't need to take them all on. All I was saying was that if the murder example fell through (I don't think it has), there were others. I'm fine sticking with murder/unjustified killing or genocide, but the others will hold up as well.

List them again please as I am beat and may not get back till tomorrow.

Take your time. Forum posts are way down on the totem pole when it comes to living your life well.

The objective truths I came up with were:
Genocide is wrong
Oppressing others is wrong
Torture is wrong*
Denying someone their freedom is wrong*
Taking care of the weak is right
Protecting children is right
Fighting evil is right

and I think the contrapositives are where we really get at the meat:
Genocide is right
Oppressing others is right
Torture is right
Denying someone their freedom is right
Taking care of the weak is wrong
Protecting children is wrong
Fighting evil is wrong

As I revisit them, I think a few are probably not especially strong cases (e.g. I might want them to be objectively true, but that may well be a subjective position on my part). I've starred the weak ones. They might be stronger if I rephrased them, but I'm too lazy.

[thedoc]

Denying someone their freedom is wrong*

If I may address just this one point for now, it would depend on the circumstances.

Denying a serial killer their freedom would not be wrong? If that freedom includes the freedom to kill again.

Denying an innocent (of any crime) their freedom is wrong.

I will state for now there is a wide spectrum of situations between these two extremes. And possibly some situations beyond them.

[ReliStuPhD]

If I may address just this one point for now, it would depend on the circumstances.

Denying a serial killer their freedom would not be wrong? If that freedom includes the freedom to kill again.

Denying an innocent (of any crime) their freedom is wrong.

I will state for now there is a wide spectrum of situations between these two extremes. And possibly some situations beyond them.

Yeah, you've pretty much nailed why I felt that it was a weak point, at least given how I formulated it. You also nailed how I would rephrase it (i.e. denying innocents their freedom). Otherwise, the East African Slave Trade was moral (on a subjectivist viewpoint).

[Greatest I am]

[

I call it assisted suicide and he would go free.

You would need to call it a "mercy killing." No suicide occurs in that scene that I can see. Fonda wants to commit suicide, but can't do it herself, so she asks someone to kill her.

Exactly. The desire for suicide came before the desire to kill and that is why I call it assisted suicide. I see it as semantics to call it mercy killing but will not argue against your term further.

He would not conform to mens rea and I think a court wold let him walk.

Highly unlikely. There's plenty of case law on this. The only real grey area is when the person being killed was actively involved in the killing. Passive "please kill me" stuff doesn't typically count.

It does wherever assisted suicide is legal and in the case shown it would certainly affect a jury's decision. Where assisted suicide is not legal, the courts and jury might as you say have to ignore the plea to die.

They should see it as a mercy killing. Hardly a red hearing.

It is as far as our discussion. We're talking about murder/unjustified killing, not mercy killings or suicide. It's definitely a red herring (though that's not to say it isn't an interesting discussion for some other time).

Perhaps, but all I wanted to show that that killing or murder was still subjective and not objective.

What you've shown is that we don't have a blanket prohibition on killing. We do with respect to murder, however. But OK, perhaps someone's definition of what constitutes a murder is subjective (though you still have to get around the fairly objective definition of "unlawful killing"). It does not speak to my assertion that unjustified killing is objectively wrong. What we define as unjustified killing may be subjective, but the act itself is not subjectively immoral.

It cannot be objectively immoral because morality is a subjective call. It is the individual who is to do the act that decides if he thinks it moral or not.

If murder was objectively immoral the courts would not have all the various murder charges that they use. 1st. degree murder, 2nd. degree murder etc.

As to where I get my morals, from many sources and media like Star Trek have a decent way of simplifying the message.

I don't see that they've done this, but fair enough.

" I think "murder is wrong" is an objective moral position"

Are right and wrong not subjective judgements?

No. This is what we've been debating. "Right" and "moral" are effectively synonymous ("right" is defined as "morally good, justified, or acceptable"), as are "wrong" and "immoral" ("wrong" = "unjust, dishonest, or immoral").

All subjective judgements. You make my case.

I have been a busy boy but what other 6 points are you talking about?

They're further up in the thread. You asked for some objective moral positions and I tossed seven out. But you certainly don't need to take them all on. All I was saying was that if the murder example fell through (I don't think it has), there were others. I'm fine sticking with murder/unjustified killing or genocide, but the others will hold up as well.

We may be at the end of this one if we do not agree already.

List them again please as I am beat and may not get back till tomorrow.

Take your time. Forum posts are way down on the totem pole when it comes to living your life well.

The objective truths I came up with were:
Genocide is wrong
Oppressing others is wrong
Torture is wrong*
Denying someone their freedom is wrong*
Taking care of the weak is right
Protecting children is right
Fighting evil is right

and I think the contrapositives are where we really get at the meat:
Genocide is right
Oppressing others is right
Torture is right
Denying someone their freedom is right
Taking care of the weak is wrong
Protecting children is wrong
Fighting evil is wrong

As I revisit them, I think a few are probably not especially strong cases (e.g. I might want them to be objectively true, but that may well be a subjective position on my part). I've starred the weak ones. They might be stronger if I rephrased them, but I'm too lazy.

[/quote]

Not nearly as lazy as me.
--------------------

"Genocide is wrong"

If Islam/Muslims, for instance, all decided that jihad against the rest of us were kosher, then would you say that genocide of all Muslims was evil? I would not like to kill so many but would not have a choice.
-------------------------

"Oppressing others is wrong"

To oppress Muslims in trying to reverse their thinking in the scenario above would be right if it is effective and saves us from having to use genocide on them.
------------------------

"Denying someone their freedom is wrong"

Think of the criminally insane. We take away their freedom to insure public safety.
----------------------------

"Taking care of the weak is right"

Only if they desire it in some cases. Subjective.
------------------------

"Protecting children is right"

The best way to protect children to some may not be the same to others and that bring subjectivity into play.
-------------------------

"Fighting evil is right"

Evil is subjective. Ask any socio masochist.

Regards
DL

[ReliStuPhD]

Main point first, then a few specific rebuttals:

You are consistently confusing how one goes about enforcing a moral, or what constitutes the target of said moral, with the moral itself. You are certainly welcome to define specific acts outside the purview of a given moral statement. If murder is wrong but act x is not murder, then it's not wrong (on that particular point of morality).

If morality is subjective, you have to be able to say the following statements:
Genocide is not wrong
Oppressing others is not wrong
Torture is not wrong
Denying someone their freedom is not wrong
Taking care of the weak is not right
Protecting children is not right
Fighting evil is not right

These statements go hand-in-hand with subjective morality. If you hold that morality is subjective, then you agree with the above statements. And not this (pardon me) bullshit of trying to get out from under the moral truth by redefining the act. The moment you redefine the act, the moral truth isn't applicable. But you've done nothing to undermine the truth itself. You have to show how protecting a child is not right to show that the truth is not objective. Simply disagreeing on the how does nothing to undermine the what.

So yes, I think we're at the end of the debate. It's fairly clear you think "subjective" means how we define the focus of the moral, not the moral itself. And the very fact that you want to go to the act rather than the moral itself shows you agree, at least implicitly, with the assertion that there are objective morals. You just think how we enforce them is often subjective. OK. I can agree with that. It doesn't mean the morals itself aren't objective. It just means we sometimes do a bad job applying them.

-----

All subjective judgements. You make my case.

This is called question-begging. It's where you assume the conclusion to an argument but never show how it follows from the premises. You're certainly welcome to assert that morality is subjective, but if that's all you can do, there's no point in continuing. Assertion is easy. Watch: "The Sun is made of paper." That's all you're doing. You're just asserting your position. You've done nothing to demonstrate it. You think that showing how this act isn't murder somehow undermines the point that murder is wrong. No, it just shows that point doesn't apply to this act. You have to show murder (or unjustified killing, as I've maintained) is right. You have to point to a clear case of unjustified killing and say "See? That was the right thing to do."

If Islam/Muslims, for instance, all decided that jihad against the rest of us were kosher, then would you say that genocide of all Muslims was evil? I would not like to kill so many but would not have a choice.

Definitely evil. I think there are many ways to prevent jihad against Jews without having to wipe out all Muslims.

To oppress Muslims in trying to reverse their thinking in the scenario above would be right if it is effective and saves us from having to use genocide on them.

No. To oppress someone for having a bad idea is definitely wrong. Now if they actually attacked, perhaps so, but this is where the qualification thedoc brought in above is helpful.

Think of the criminally insane. We take away their freedom to insure public safety.

Yes, you've got a good point. I would have to spend some time reworking that statement (thedoc has started that above)

Only if they desire it in some cases.

Hardly. That's not even an rebuttal. Objective morality still has gradations. One objective moral point can trump another (e.g. respecting someone's freedom to choose may trump protecting them).

The best way to protect children to some may not be the same to others and that bring subjectivity into play.

This is not an objection. You are explicitly agreeing that it's right by speaking of the "best" way! You're debating the how, not the what. You did not say "It is wrong to protect children." Instead, you said "How we do it my differ." Fine. It does not change the fact that it's right. I think you're simply confused on what morality means. If it's not objective, you have to say that it's not always right to protect children. I seriously doubt you're willing to do that.

Evil is subjective. Ask any socio masochist.

Again, not an objection! Sure, evil may be subjective, but fighting it is not. I think it's pretty clear that Hitler was evil. Ergo, it is clear we need to fight that. Serial rapists. Child murderers. Genocidal dictators. Evil. Fight them.

[Greatest I am]

To fight evil, one must first decide it is evil and that is always a subjective judgement.

That is why I used that clip.

I give the human victim the right to choose for herself if here death is right for her or not. I leave it to the shooter who helps his friend to die if doing so is evil or not.

To say that to kill or to murder is always wrong and objectively immoral is to tell both of those characters who placed their wishes above all else that they were wrong.

We are humans and like to choose. Take our choices away for dead laws that always go the one way and you end the beauty and worth of our minds.

That may be why Jesus said to write the laws of God in our hearts and ignore the written word when intelligence guides us to do so.

Regards
DL

[thedoc]

"Protecting children is right"

The best way to protect children to some may not be the same to others and that bring subjectivity into play.
Regards
DL

Q. What is one good thing about a pedophile?



A. They always slow down in a school zone.

[ReliStuPhD]

To fight evil, one must first decide it is evil and that is always a subjective judgement.

That is why I used that clip.

I give the human victim the right to choose for herself if here death is right for her or not. I leave it to the shooter who helps his friend to die if doing so is evil or not.

To say that to kill or to murder is always wrong and objectively immoral is to tell both of those characters who placed their wishes above all else that they were wrong.

We are humans and like to choose. Take our choices away for dead laws that always go the one way and you end the beauty and worth of our minds.

That may be why Jesus said to write the laws of God in our hearts and ignore the written word when intelligence guides us to do so.

I think you're still misunderstanding the point, and this post illustrates that. What you've said here is perfectly fine. I agree that deciding what is evil has a subjective measure (though I don't agree with "always"). And your point about the movie? Yes, it's a good one. Even with respect to killing and murder "always being wrong," I think I've even given good reason above to think that's not my position, especially insofar as I felt compelled to alter "murder" to "unjustified killing." Though these are the points you've been defending, they're not the point I've been "attacking." Here's where I think you misunderstand the point:

To say, for example, that "unjustified killing is wrong" does not mean that the scene in "They Shoot Horses" is therefore wrong. If you can make a case that the killing was not unjustified, then you are saying "that moral does not apply to this situation." To use a silly analogy, if I said "It is an objective fact that all American cars suck" and you say "My car is not American," you would not be refuting my statement. You'd simply be saying it didn't apply to your car. To refute my statement, you'd need to actually show me at least one American car that didn't suck. So, back to the case at hand, if I say "unjustified killing is objectively wrong" and you say "this isn't an unjustified killing," you've done nothing to undermine my point. To undermine my point, you'd need to say something like "This killing was unjustified, and it was also right." So the moment you make the case that Robert killing Gloria wasn't murder, you've simply made the case that my objective standard for morality doesn't apply in this case. OK, fine. You still haven't shown the standard not to be objective. You've simply shown it can be applied subjectively.

All that to say, objective morality does not mean that all applications are objective. I can state that it is objectively wrong to rape a woman and still apply that standard incorrectly because of subjective understandings (e.g. in a case of consensual sex between a 17 y.o. and a 19 y.o.). So yes, it is true that we are prone to make the mistake of applying objective moral standards subjectively. That does not mean that the standards themselves are not objective.

[ReliStuPhD]

Q. What is one good thing about a pedophile?
A. They always slow down in a school zone.

That is SO wrong, lol

[Greatest I am]

"Protecting children is right"

The best way to protect children to some may not be the same to others and that bring subjectivity into play.
Regards
DL

Q. What is one good thing about a pedophile?



A. They always slow down in a school zone.

I have been trying to think of any situations where a moral tenet might be objective instead of the usual subjective.

You may have found one and those who put their need above the needs of the many may also be one.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

To fight evil, one must first decide it is evil and that is always a subjective judgement.

That is why I used that clip.

I give the human victim the right to choose for herself if here death is right for her or not. I leave it to the shooter who helps his friend to die if doing so is evil or not.

To say that to kill or to murder is always wrong and objectively immoral is to tell both of those characters who placed their wishes above all else that they were wrong.

We are humans and like to choose. Take our choices away for dead laws that always go the one way and you end the beauty and worth of our minds.

That may be why Jesus said to write the laws of God in our hearts and ignore the written word when intelligence guides us to do so.

I think you're still misunderstanding the point, and this post illustrates that. What you've said here is perfectly fine. I agree that deciding what is evil has a subjective measure (though I don't agree with "always"). And your point about the movie? Yes, it's a good one. Even with respect to killing and murder "always being wrong," I think I've even given good reason above to think that's not my position, especially insofar as I felt compelled to alter "murder" to "unjustified killing." Though these are the points you've been defending, they're not the point I've been "attacking." Here's where I think you misunderstand the point:

To say, for example, that "unjustified killing is wrong" does not mean that the scene in "They Shoot Horses" is therefore wrong. If you can make a case that the killing was not unjustified, then you are saying "that moral does not apply to this situation." To use a silly analogy, if I said "It is an objective fact that all American cars suck" and you say "My car is not American," you would not be refuting my statement. You'd simply be saying it didn't apply to your car. To refute my statement, you'd need to actually show me at least one American car that didn't suck. So, back to the case at hand, if I say "unjustified killing is objectively wrong" and you say "this isn't an unjustified killing," you've done nothing to undermine my point. To undermine my point, you'd need to say something like "This killing was unjustified, and it was also right." So the moment you make the case that Robert killing Gloria wasn't murder, you've simply made the case that my objective standard for morality doesn't apply in this case. OK, fine. You still haven't shown the standard not to be objective. You've simply shown it can be applied subjectively.

All that to say, objective morality does not mean that all applications are objective. I can state that it is objectively wrong to rape a woman and still apply that standard incorrectly because of subjective understandings (e.g. in a case of consensual sex between a 17 y.o. and a 19 y.o.). So yes, it is true that we are prone to make the mistake of applying objective moral standards subjectively. That does not mean that the standards themselves are not objective.

It does when a subjective judgement is what is determining justifiability.

I listed the only two potential objective morality issues that I have thought of to date just above.

Both do require subjective analysis of the given situation so if morals are a human construct, which they are, they all seem to be subjective. Someone has to decide if a thing is moral or not before doing it.

Regards
DL

[ReliStuPhD]

I have been trying to think of any situations where a moral tenet might be objective instead of the usual subjective.

You may have found one and those who put their need above the needs of the many may also be one.

Well, I think it's very important to point out that you're making a excellent (implicit) point that moral tenets aren't automatically objective. I can come up with a few as I've done above (and your addition), but I certainly wouldn't hold to something like "all moral tenets are objective." So if someone were to say "It's an objective moral truth that gays shouldn't marry," I would absolutely disagree. So maybe I can restate much of my position this way:

1. There are objective moral truths, but...
2. Not all moral truths are objective, and...
3. Objective moral truths are not always applied objectively.

That's not meant to be a syllogism, by the way, just three points I find to be reasonable in evaluating moral truths.

[ReliStuPhD]

It does when a subjective judgement is what is determining justifiability.

On this, you and I agree completely. Just because someone says a moral truth is objective, it doesn't mean it is.

Both do require subjective analysis of the given situation so if morals are a human construct, which they are, they all seem to be subjective. Someone has to decide if a thing is moral or not before doing it.

Well, I don't agree that they're human constructs. Some are, certainly. Others, however, are things we discover, much like we discover logical truths, etc. So I would say that there are simply two types of moral truths: subjective and objective.

[Greatest I am]

It does when a subjective judgement is what is determining justifiability.

On this, you and I agree completely. Just because someone says a moral truth is objective, it doesn't mean it is.

Both do require subjective analysis of the given situation so if morals are a human construct, which they are, they all seem to be subjective. Someone has to decide if a thing is moral or not before doing it.

Well, I don't agree that they're human constructs. Some are, certainly. Others, however, are things we discover, much like we discover logical truths, etc.

What moral truth have we discovered instead of inventing?

Regards
DL

[ReliStuPhD]

What moral truth have we discovered instead of inventing?

The ones I've listed, at least, though some probably need to be reworded.