What is your basis for morality? Part II
I made an earlier blog post just before I got too sick to even blog: What is your basis for morality?
I've reread all the comments. Only one commenter actually addressed the question and that was IAMB.
"To answer the original question, I've always been a fan of Kant's method for weighing moral rights and wrongs. The basic gist is that you examine an action or decision by imagining what kind of world you'd be living in if said action/decision were essentially a law of the universe in that everyone in the situation in question would always act the same without exception i.e. you imagine the act as if it were a universal law. If it turns out that the world would still be a decent place, you're pretty safe to say that the decision is morally decent as well."
I was surprised that no one else even tried to answer. One commenter who is hung up on two or three issues that have been answered but not to his satisfaction and another who joined him in trying to focus on how to define the word, "kill."
I went over the definition of the word used in the Bible for "kill" which translates as "murder." Common sense tells you what murder is and is not. If Nazis kill millions of Jews because they are Jews, that is murder. If both sides in WWII killed soldiers of the opposite side, that was warfare. If a convicted murderer is given the death sentence because of his crimes, that is a judicial death sentence not murder. Many of you would disagree, but this means that abortion is murder and thus against the Law given by God. But in most cases it is legal in this country.
Genocide for the sake of genocide is murder. Cannibalism requires that someone be killed in order to eat them, which would be murder. Is someone trying to manuver me into a "gotcha" here?
Creeper, I answered ice cores and I answered Christians in jail. I disagree with you and believe you are wrong. You are only arguing with yourself when you continue to bring those old bones back to life. Stay on topic, maybe?
So back to topic one. Kant's philosophy boils down to "figure out what you think is right and do it." In other words, YOU make the call based on the sum total of your knowledge and wisdom and experience.
In the immortal words of Dwight Shrute; "Whenever I’m about to do something, I think "would an idiot do that?" and if they would, I do not do that thing."
The problem here is that no absolutes are involved, no higher authority, no source of wisdom or knowledge other than one's self. But IAMB at age five would likely have a very different view of right and wrong than he would at age fifteen and then at twenty-five and then age fifty. Does that mean right and wrong is changing? In this viewpoint, yes, right and wrong are fluid and therefore actually indefinable. The concept of right and wrong then becomes a matter of opinion.
Taking on the philosophical viewpoint of a Kant, a LaVey, a Nietzsche involves integrating a worldview of another with your own but in the end you are still deciding with only your own intellect and judgment as resources.
Christians and Jews accept God as the authority and see God's Laws as being absolutes. Proverbs 3:5&6 states:
Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
And also as an example from Luke 10:27:
“ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’”
Simply speaking, having a belief in God and respect for his Laws means that you incorporate your best judgment and intentions along with your sure knowledge of what a higher authority has revealed as "right" and "wrong" so that you have a basis for your decisions. The most well-meaning of unbelievers miss out on the absolutes and therefore have no sure basis for their decisions beyond their own limitations. We all have limitations. Having absolutes helps us avoid be bound by those limitations in making the important decisions of life.
I've reread all the comments. Only one commenter actually addressed the question and that was IAMB.
"To answer the original question, I've always been a fan of Kant's method for weighing moral rights and wrongs. The basic gist is that you examine an action or decision by imagining what kind of world you'd be living in if said action/decision were essentially a law of the universe in that everyone in the situation in question would always act the same without exception i.e. you imagine the act as if it were a universal law. If it turns out that the world would still be a decent place, you're pretty safe to say that the decision is morally decent as well."
I was surprised that no one else even tried to answer. One commenter who is hung up on two or three issues that have been answered but not to his satisfaction and another who joined him in trying to focus on how to define the word, "kill."
I went over the definition of the word used in the Bible for "kill" which translates as "murder." Common sense tells you what murder is and is not. If Nazis kill millions of Jews because they are Jews, that is murder. If both sides in WWII killed soldiers of the opposite side, that was warfare. If a convicted murderer is given the death sentence because of his crimes, that is a judicial death sentence not murder. Many of you would disagree, but this means that abortion is murder and thus against the Law given by God. But in most cases it is legal in this country.
Genocide for the sake of genocide is murder. Cannibalism requires that someone be killed in order to eat them, which would be murder. Is someone trying to manuver me into a "gotcha" here?
Creeper, I answered ice cores and I answered Christians in jail. I disagree with you and believe you are wrong. You are only arguing with yourself when you continue to bring those old bones back to life. Stay on topic, maybe?
So back to topic one. Kant's philosophy boils down to "figure out what you think is right and do it." In other words, YOU make the call based on the sum total of your knowledge and wisdom and experience.
In the immortal words of Dwight Shrute; "Whenever I’m about to do something, I think "would an idiot do that?" and if they would, I do not do that thing."
The problem here is that no absolutes are involved, no higher authority, no source of wisdom or knowledge other than one's self. But IAMB at age five would likely have a very different view of right and wrong than he would at age fifteen and then at twenty-five and then age fifty. Does that mean right and wrong is changing? In this viewpoint, yes, right and wrong are fluid and therefore actually indefinable. The concept of right and wrong then becomes a matter of opinion.
Taking on the philosophical viewpoint of a Kant, a LaVey, a Nietzsche involves integrating a worldview of another with your own but in the end you are still deciding with only your own intellect and judgment as resources.
Christians and Jews accept God as the authority and see God's Laws as being absolutes. Proverbs 3:5&6 states:
Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
And also as an example from Luke 10:27:
“ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’”
Simply speaking, having a belief in God and respect for his Laws means that you incorporate your best judgment and intentions along with your sure knowledge of what a higher authority has revealed as "right" and "wrong" so that you have a basis for your decisions. The most well-meaning of unbelievers miss out on the absolutes and therefore have no sure basis for their decisions beyond their own limitations. We all have limitations. Having absolutes helps us avoid be bound by those limitations in making the important decisions of life.