The Willow Of Darkness
stealthmongoose
And by comparison you must be blind. What you described was an act of ethical application. You wouldn't want to be tortured, so you don't torture others. That's ethics! You learned a new word today!
You speak of how you think that something is personally right, of that ethics should be used, yet you fail to realise that this means that you are accepting what was referred earlier as "moral truth." That there is a truth of what action we are obligated to perform and not to perform. When you instate a system of ethics you take it is the case, it is the truth, that people should behave in a certain way and dismiss other ways of acting. You demand that people behave a certain why and not another way because of the truth of the given ethical system. Not in the way me and my opponent are arguing the matter.
His definitions of morality seems to hinge on a binary axiom of right and wrong that he has not mentioned a source for aside from my assertions of what he should base it off of (Suffering, hardship, etc.) and as such he has failed to provide a source for his morality other than "right and wrong".
The assertion I am making is that his partisanship of morality leads to a subjective viewpoint that if not explored is less founded because it does not validate itself. Why is something wrong? Is it wrong because it causes suffering? Because it goes against the king's orders? Because it's illegal? These ideas are worth exploring and are a much better definition of right and wrong than simply 'right' and 'wrong'.
I as a person can accept something personally and see my lack of knowledge in applying it. I personally accept the idea that torture is wrong because i rarely find cases in which it can be accepted.
Even in such cases, the 'moral truth' is not the truth if it is not universal, since truths are by their very nature universal. My opponent's example of a 'moral truth' in torture being wrong is eliminated in it's content by the application of torture to commit what some, if not most, perceive to be a 'greater good' (saving a family with the information extracted from one tortured person for example). I am not arguing that this greater good exists (in fact, i think it's a piss poor excuse to pretend to know what's right for the world) but assuming to know it on an axiom and a shifting set of ideals that is neither universal nor true or very well founded it seems makes me want to explore the idea in all of it's parts. Ethics are much the same way, where you feel a certain way and either think or do not think that this way should be applied to others. Vis a vis "I like chocolate" leads to "Maybe other people like chocolate" but does NOT EVER become "Chocolate is delicious to everyone!" <<<<This would imply a nontruth (get what i'm saying?)
First, you're trying to tie in ethical ideas with morality, then you try and assert them as 'true', when they are in fact very subjective and differentiate on culture and other societal variables including economic success and other such things.
From this point you actually start pretending to represent my views. Logically speaking, True and should do not follow each other and still make sense. If it is true that torture does not get applied to do good things, then it is not a matter of should or should not, there would be no alternative one way or another if the morals being asserted were 'true'. As such, they are just morals, and at best, ethics, which are still subjective to an extent. I do not demand or imply truth upon the way anything should act towards anyone, i present the outcomes and the effects of such actions and do not label them as right or wrong.
For example, you can say 'killing is wrong' and propose that as a moral truth (not far from what was proposed by my opponent in the torture scenario) and label it as wrong for everyone all the time and there is no excuse for ever doing it. At least, that's the idea i get from the assertion of moral truth.
Then someone kills in self defense after being assaulted and potentially raped. Someone else kills a thief stealing their medication. Someone commits suicide after living in solitary confinement for several years. Someone else kills their patient because it was their wish to not live in a coma.
All of these acts are wrong. No excuse. Axiom et axiom.
Ethics is a little more accurate, but not by much:
By ethics, i see that if i were being assaulted and potentially raped, it would be good ti dispatch my oppressor as quickly as possible. By ethics, i realize that medication when i take it feels relatively important in maintaining my bodily health, so i can understand someone committing bodily harm to a person who stole it from them. By ethics i don't have to say the person who committed suicide was right or wrong since i can look at how i would potentially feel sitting in a locked room for many years and no human contact and see that perhaps no dichotomy fits that act. By ethics, i can look at a person without labeling them good or evil for something as simple as giving another person the peace they wish for just by seeing the amount of suffering they are going through and realize that i would not want to go on living hooked up to a machine either!
This does not make ethics, morality, or anything else with that much subjectivity true or universal, and CERTAINLY not in the way my opponent is presenting it; "Good/Bad" "Innocent/Guilty" etc.
The only truth to morality is that it is thought about, and if that's the case i'll stick with calling it morality.
