Absolute Morality...again.

So you would happily ditch your current views on morality if it were shown that they were absolutely "immoral"?

Hardly. History clearly demonstrates that morality has been observed as a relative concept. No matter how much you attempt to rationalize your position, we have no evidence for any form of absolute morality.

Is this an existing theory or one you are developing? Have you considered Wittgenstein's writings on language?Are you defining concept as something non verbal? How are you defining concept?lfen

You mean if I believed Allah was God, would I consider it justice to hack off the heads of rejectors of Allah, hack off the hands of petty thieves, and put adulterers and adulteresses to death? I suppose I would. What's your point?

A problem with this discussion is that I have to guess what you mean by post-structuralism and I'm sure you are a lot more familiar with it than I am although I may have a pretty good idea of it.I think I get your basic idea, that you are hoping it's possible to get completely away from interpretation because that's what postmodernism does, in fact it makes interpretation the whole point as if the text had no meaning in itself, or something like that.There are different reasons why we have to interpret though. I'm talking about the kind of interpretation where it's hard to get at the objective or original meaning, the meaning intended by the author, and this is shown in the fact that people naturally read different meanings into it. As you say, this is true of all kinds of things such as the Constitution and legal contracts. A lot of that in my opinion is what you call bad faith interpretations, though. I think postmodernist interpretations in general are bad faith interpretations, designed to obscure, or impose the interpreter's hobbyhorse meaning on the text rather than illuminate it.But there's nevertheless the problem of the natural ambiguity of language, and people's different experiences with language, that makes it hard in some cases to get at the original meaning even in good faith. In the case of an ancient or translated text such as the Bible, there are even more ambiguities to get through. Translators face this problem as inherent in their work.But always the aim is to get at the original, or objective meaning, what was originally intended, which is not at all what Postmodernism /post-structuralism / deconstructionism has in mind. These systems assume there is no objective or original meaning or something like that, or it doesn't matter if there is, everything is a Rorschach test the reader interprets in his own way. It's an artificial system imposed on a text. These personal interpretations used to be considered mistakes of interpretation, and still are by sane interpreters. But Postmodernism makes them into virtues.(As I understand deconstructionism, it is based on a Marxist type of system, by which texts are interpreted as being "really" about class struggles rather than what they are ostensibly about, and an oppressor and oppressed class are ferreted out, no matter what the text is.)Please correct me if I'm wrong because I'm not quite sure I get what you mean by post-structuralism though I think I do.The first kind of interpretation I'm talking about is perfectly compatible with the kind of literalism I mean by Bible literalism. Bible literalists don't assume that the first meaning that pops into our heads is necessarily the right one as we are sometimes considered to be doing. In fact much of the Bible takes work to understand. Bible expositers if they're any good spend many hours preparing a sermon on a particular text. Martin Luther knew the book of Romans very well and had taught it for years before he finally understood what "The righteousness of God" means.So although we can't get away from interpretation, we can reject the postmodernist notion that interpretation is all there is, and recognize that there is such a thing as an original objective meaning even if it's hard to get at. In other words, assuming that there are inevitable naturally occurring ambiguities, while also assuming that there is an objective meaning that is the point of reading any text at all, doesn't leave us in the hellhole of Postmodernism.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

That's just childish, Faith. You know full well that not all Muslims are extremists. Point being that advocates of absolute morality often assume that the form it takes will be in line with their own beliefs. You seem to understand my argument.

You miss the point. All Muslims don't obey all the dictates of their religion, but the religion contains those dictates nevertheless, and since I'm not into halfway beliefs, if I were a Muslim I'm sure I'd be a supporter of the whole system, Sharia law and all. This is obvious. Again I ask, what's your point?

Yes, you see my point. I asked the question and you answered. That was it!

OK, I just figured out your point. No, that's not your point. That's simply an obvious observation. Your point is, that since there are different beliefs and different moralities, therefore there is not an absolute morality. But this is not necessarily true. This is in fact a good example of the kind of postmodernist thinking I've just been discussing with Robin above. There is such a thing as mistakes: There may very well be an absolute morality, some moral precepts simply being wrong.It doesn't depend on what any of us believes, so that your asking me what morality I'd hold if I believed in Allah is irrelevant outside the postmodernist assumption. If there is an absolute morality it exists no matter what any of us believes. Not every argument is a subjective one: That is the postmodernist assumption but it's false.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

How do you measure / judge "goodness"?

Wrong. I think you'll agree that this argument does not follow.My point was if there IS an absolute morality in existence somewhere, its advocates might want to consider the possbility that it may take form that they dislike. Exactly.But I would argue that since no-one has as yet demonstrated that absolute morality does exist, the concept is rendered irrelevent.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

Yes they might. So what? That's obvious too. But you don't seem to recognize an objective argument when you see one. You assume all arguments are based on subjective partisanship. This too is not always the case. It's just a blind assumption of your own.

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Anyway, I think I've been answering your questions. Let me know if I have not answered them in the fashion that you want and I'll do my best to clarify.

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The problem is that you're putting the cart before the horse. Before we can determine if absolute morality exists, we have to understand the meaning of absolute morality. I'm not asking that you define what morals are absolute (not yet anyway), but what absolute morality means. Over the course of our discussion you have given at least 3 different definitions of absolute in relation to morality, but I don't feel that you understand that you have done that.I've come to the conclusion in spite of your efforts, that the philosopical definition is what absolutionist intend and you seem to agree. That's one definition.

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It means a set of of morals that cannot be changed by personal prejudice. That's all that it means. I think we'd have to be very obtuse not to understand what it means. Number 4 seems to be the most accurate; a definite set of principles.

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Here is number 2 in your efforts. You've agreed with the philosophical definition with your first sentence, but your last sentence doesn't agree with it.The 4th definition of absolute doesn't mean a set of principles that cannot be changed by personal prejudice. The 4th definition means positive as in they are definitely principles. Understand the difference? Which falls under definition #1 not necessarily #6. Something that is completely true today, may not be tomorrow and may not have been in the past. This definition does not carry the meaning of independent, permanent and not subject to qualification.Try staying consistent with your usage of the word.

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Don't bite your tongue. Go ahead and list them. I'm sure they'll be fun to philosophize over.

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Your statement is what I was biting my tongue over. But you still didn't answer my question. It doesn't matter what the morals are, I wanted you to define what characteristics determines whether these morals can be labeled as absolute or not.It was a different attempt to get you to show me how you are using the word absolute in relation to morals.

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If someone falls 90 feet off a cliff, with or without a parachute, you won't live, because you are high enough to where you will reach terminal velocity, but not enough time for the parachute to work properly. But that really isn't the premise of my argument. The premise is that the law of gravity is absolute, and irrespective of our opinions about it, it reigns supreme.

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In case you haven't noticed it yet, the problem with your example statements is that you aren't being specific. You are making very general statements.Your statement: You fall off a cliff, you go splat.That statement is not true all the time. You had to qualify the height of the cliff. If you were trying to give an example of the law of gravity, it would have been more precise to say, "If you step off a cliff, you will fall downward." Even a hang glider goes downward before the drafts lift it up.But the laws of physics have nothing to do with morality. Even if there are "absolutes" in physics, that doesn't mean that there are morals that are independent, permanent and not subject to qualification. That's when we look at the actual morals and see if they meet the definition.If you really want to discuss whether any one moral is independent, permanent and not subject to qualification, now we can if you can keep to the philosopical definition of absolute.

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

Not blind I assure you, but it WAS an assumption I wanted to have an answer to. You argue that I am wrong. Fair enough.However, I would now like some clarification. You consistently rail againt "moral relativism" and preach the ultimate authority of Biblical scripture. On the other hand you seem to accept that there are different types of morality.Do you believe some form of absolute morality?Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

There are different angles on this problem. I'll start here: It is possible as an atheist to think hard about moral problems and try to arrive at the RIGHT moral position on any given situation, and I would say that aiming for the right or best judgment involves an assumption that there is an absolute or objective morality that could possibly be arrived at, in this case by reason. Assuming that there is a best moral judgment in any given case is assuming that there is an absolute morality that could conceivably, at least theoretically, be discovered. Would you agree?When I was still an atheist I held that point of view myself. I believed that there definitely is a right answer to every question whether or not anyone could arrive at it, and that those of us who think about such things are all straining all the time to arrive at it. It follows from this that all we can do is argue our case for our best judgment against others' cases for their best judgment and hope the best will prevail; and we can have faith that it will because human beings are a rational animal and this is possible. I suppose I also assumed that that's how law and morality have been established in rational societies, but of course not by us average citizens, rather by the greatest minds who have been trained in this kind of reasoning. Or something like that.Then along came relativism and postmodernism and said that all we have is subjective feelings and moralities and the idea of an absolute morality, or absolute truth, or absolute anything, is false, simply because there are all these different understandings and beliefs and moralities in the world. "What is true for you may not be true for me" etc etc etc. Truth stopped being truth and became relative, a subjective thing, a solipsistically defined thing. Some version or other of this set of ideas dominates the world today.I never accepted it. I thought it was crazy from the first time I heard it. I got so sick of hearing it, and hearing that there is no reality, that there is only interpretation, that everything is a Rorschach test onto which we all project our own inner motives and there is no objective truth or reality, that I fell into a state of deep cynicism about just how rational human beings are. Yes there are all these different viewpoints and moralities in the world, but to my mind all this is just human fallibility: personal subjective interpretation is a handicap we all labor under, that the whole point of education and civilization itself is to correct. If you say it's not a mistake, but elevate it to a virtue, to status as the sole source of knowledge available to mankind, that is, no knowledge at all but just private opinions, you are promoting what is really a form of insanity, and civilization must ultimately collapse.I thought that before I was a Christian and I still think it, only now I have a whole new view of the world and reality and the human condition that I believe because I believe it to be THE truth and THE source of absolute morality. I didn't gravitate to it out of any subjective partisanship at all, I did a lot of reading before I arrived at it, and I believe it to be given by the Creator God Himself, who so graciously allowed me to believe in Him. And this is what I argue for here, on what I believe to be objective principles, not any blind partisanship.In other words, of course many moralities exist, but there can only be one right one, and I believe, on what I insist are objective grounds, not subjective, that I've found it.I hope this answers your question.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.