Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: coberst on 01/08/2009 12:36:03
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Why do we seek moral absolutes?
Let’s consider the moral argument that is often rendered to justify making abortion illegal.
The argument goes something like this: murder (killing an innocent person) is morally and legally prohibited, the fetus is an innocent person, abortion kills the fetus, and therefore abortion is murder.
This argument turns on the premise that the fetus is a person. The category person must be absolutely and universally understood and fixed to make this argument work. The category (concept) person must be either value-neutral or it must be based upon some absolute value. If such is not the case then each time we consider this matter, person can take on a different meaning.
If each “application of the concept determines its meaning, either (1) we would need a rule for applying the concept in various cases (and this would be the same as saying that the meaning of ‘person’ is fixed), or (2) we would be left with the possibility that different people might apply the concept differently.”
If the category person is a function of our personal value system then we can expect that our view of this matter would vary accordingly. We might avoid this variability if the concept person is value neutral and thus does not depend upon our personal value system. Another way is to claim that we all have access to some absolute or ultimate value that is binding upon each of us.
Without absolute truths we recognize that we must depend on the judgment of fallible, and frail creatures living within constantly evolving communities; non critical individuals who are forced to make decisions with little training or understanding of critical thinking skills within what are typically highly ambiguous situations.
“In sum, moral absolutism is motivated by a very widespread human longing for clarity, certainty, order, and constraint in a world that confronts us constantly with change, obscurity, doubt, contingency, and aggression.”
Quotes from Moral Imagination by Mark Johnson
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Why do we seek moral absolutes?
Why not seek moral absolutes?..........It's the scientific approach!
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The point of the OP s to focus attention upon our inclination to seek absolutes and that this inclination tends to lead us into catastrophes.
We must learn how we think and why we do the things that we do so that our species may last a bit longer. Our greatest problem is learning how to just get-along. Our technology has placed extraordinary power into the hands of ordinary people and if we do not become more sophisticated we will destroy our species and perhaps all life on this planet.
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Our greatest problem is learning how to just get-along.
Why worry about getting along? Allow the weak to survive and you'll weaken the race. Survival of the fittest is Natural selection in action, I believe it's called 'Evolution'.