Is there absolute morality law, or in other word absolute good thing or bad thing?
This is not only wrong, but definitively wrong.
In fact it is so wrong, it's not EVEN wrong. It is just a misunderstanding of morality.
Humans do not exhaust the absolute. In other words; the absolute is defined as a thing which requires no human. Since humans decide what is evil or good; such ideas cannot be absolute, nor can things attributable to good and evil be deemed absolutely so.
Hobbes said something like Good is that which pleases man; Evil is that which pleaseth him not.
If you can begin to name one thing which is totally either good or evil in the minds of all persons, then you would still have all your work to do, in trying to convince the argument that this thing would be so regardless of human judgment.
And it is judgment which is key here. Morality is what humans judge it to be. There seems to be no exception to this. Regardless the religious demand that it is God's judgment which makes morality absolute.
I would assert that the very idea that a moral code could be absolute is wholly a religious one.
I do not find the word moral very useful, it primarily refers to organizational or personal judgements. I find the word morale is much more useful. According to my definition, a person has a high morale when they feel they can succeed and are willing to invest effort into achieving their goals and the things they care about. A person has a low morale when they feel that chances of success are not high enough and they are not willing to make the investment. This difference has been noticed for many thousands of years. Christians have labeled this as “The Power of Surficial Suffering.” I am not a religious scholar by any means, but I feel sure that most, if not all, religions have some reference to this willingness to endure short term suffering for a purpose. In AA we have a saying: “Shot term suffering for long term gain.”
Selma, Alabama – 1965
As we stood face to face with the Selma police in a demonstration outside Brown Chapel AME Church, a 9 year old girl standing next to me said to me; “To suffer for no good reason is misery; to willingly suffer for a just cause can bring you power.” Two days later, while we were still standing in the middle of the street, President Johnson, the most powerful man in the world, called a joint session of the US congress to announce, in a worldwide broadcast, that he was proposing a bill that would insure that the black people of Selma, and others, would be able to register and to vote in US elections. The speech was broadcast to the demonstrators in the street from a radio that someone placed in a second-story window. They transformed their anger and sadness about unjust suffering into the freedom to act by their willingness to sacrifice (invest) whatever suffering it would take to achieve their just and positive goals. They experienced their suffering as personal, but saw it as an investment in a much higher purpose than their personal wellbeing, and therefore a much greater reward than just personal success. These demonstrators became free when they became willing to suffer whatever it would take to achieve their goals. They then could no longer be controlled by their oppressors. By their willingness to suffer themselves, and never willingly cause suffering for others, they were able to clearly demonstrate to the world the justness of their cause and the unjustness of their opposition. To force, or attempt to force, others to suffer to achieve our purposed is never acceptable or productive. When we do so, buy such action as blocking traffic, we cross over a line and join the ranks of the oppressors and terrorists who use the threat of causing suffering as a way to achieve their goals and take freedom away from others. It lowers everyone’s morale and detracts attention from just issues. It clouds and confuses important issues. It adds anger and resentment to the emotional environment. We frighten people by our willingness to cause others to suffer to achieve our ends. (How far are we willing to go?) We also squander the opportunity to develop real Morale Power. By using Nonviolence, or Satyagraha (truth force of morale power), the demonstrators of Selma were able to maintain clarity of issues, avoid confusion, and overpower their oppressors and, in the long run, to reduce unnecessary suffering.
Caring precedes hurt, which precedes hate.
If people hate, that’s because something they care about is not happening.
People who hate hurt (are scared) because they see that people don’t care about them.
They feel this as a survival level threat.
If I can’t feel compassion for people who hate, I remain part of the problem!
This is where I store my attempts at writing, please take a look now and then.
[drive.google.com]
[alettertoanyone.com] (My web site)
Was going to say "Nope"... but then I read @Cutiebeauty response...!
Yes there is... Just do what I say and you will be alright..
My observation would be no. The base instinct of unfettered Man is a horror as we have seen with ISIS and looting and violence after disasters. The ‘moral’ structures in place are civic authority and religion. Left to our own devices we are self-serving monsters. (A few individuals excepted)
Not so, in fact the reverse. Humans had been around for a very long time before the development of formal moral codes. They got on just fine as do so-called "primitive" folks in recent times. Your example of ISIS is perfect. Members are encouraged to be cruel toward those who are not members of the group, but must observe strict moral behaviour toward their fellows. Laws and religious mores always encourage the "in-group" vs. "out-group" dichotomy.
@amymcmxcii so if we took away all structural authority we’d get along fine?
Relativists would say that moral judgments are always subject to societal norms,but this seems to be proved wrong by the fact that there are some moral judgments that all societies agree on, such as that it is wrong to kill people for pleasure. Also we seem to have certain innate traits which I would call moral, such as our sense of fairness, which has been demonstrated in children as young as three months
Your claim may be true on a wide societal level, but what about on an individual level or even on a group level?
Also, though even children have an innate sense of fairness, I can guarantee that they do not agree on what is fair.
@Heraclitus that is true. Children will take advantage of another’s vulnerability. A classic observation of factions and their moral/legal codes is Lord Of The Flies. How do we respond when striped bare of structure. It’s not a pretty sight. Rioting and looting seem to be the baseline when the shackles of authority are unlocked.
@Heraclitus I am not talking thing about behaviour which is affected by all kinds of issues . I am talking about moral values as such.
Just because there is agreement among different groups about something does not mean that it is universal in a connected sort of way. Early man developed fire, stone axes, agriculture, &c. completely independently in various places on the planet. It does not follow that there is some sort of metaphysical connexion. I think it likely that most people figured out that murdering one's neighbour was not a good idea for a variety of reasons. They didn't need an answering machine in a burning bush to point this out.
@CeliaVL I am not talking about behavior either. Rather I am talking about individuals, or even groups of individuals with society, that hold different moral values than the society they live within. There may be sadists, for example, that disagree with your statement.
You are wrong. Some societies valorise killing, killing for pleasure. It has been the basis of many conquering civilisations.
No all acts, actions, choices and happenstance are completely subjective based on the circumstances and culture of the observer
No! Morals are simply pragmatic rules selected for through evolutionary processes and that have been show to give a survival benefit to societies that adopt them. One of the proofs of this is that rules may change radically with changing conditions.
NO, name any morality and you could find a situation where it would be moral to break it. Example is, it is unmoral to take a life, but if your life or the life of your family threated, would you not kill to protect your own life or your family.
Absolutely not!
The only way to have absolute morality is for there to be an Absolute Being who lays down absolute laws or morality and makes those laws absolutely clear. If that were the case, you wouldn't even be asking the question.
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