Are you Conservative or a Liberal?

[Dezerte]

And I dont think you understand what I quoted, as that would cover what you describe.

What you quoted supports my post completely.

[Yvaelle]

I don't think you understand, moral relativism means e.g. that raping infants can be morally right.

Moral absolutism can make the same claim, depending on whose morals are taken to be absolute. Personally I'm much more terrified of the prospect of people claiming they were told it was the right thing to do by a moral authority, than someone doing something truly horrific but attempting to justify themselves given the circumstances at the time.

[Deleted]

Moral absolutism can make the same claim, depending on whose morals are taken to be absolute. Personally I'm much more terrified of the prospect of people claiming they were told it was the right thing to do by a moral authority, than someone doing something truly horrific but attempting to justify themselves given the circumstances at the time.

I'm disgusted of the notion that somebody goes on to rationalise their clearly harmful deeds to begin with.

[Dezerte]

Moral absolutism can make the same claim, depending on whose morals are taken to be absolute. Personally I'm much more terrified of the prospect of people claiming they were told it was the right thing to do by a moral authority, than someone doing something truly horrific but attempting to justify themselves given the circumstances at the time.

Getting to the moral truth isn't easy, but we can setup simple rules to follow (such as: human suffering is bad or treat people as you'd like to be treated) and we'll be hitting fairly close to what is the morally right thing to do.

It's through careful consideration and analysis with reason, logic & data as our tools, that we can ascertain what the morally right thing to do is, as best as we possibly can.

[Sole-Warrior]

1)I believe in federal funding science, especially in the medical field. In the future science funding to defeat aging through regenerative medicines would and could be a real good to humanity.
2)Strong supporter of universal healthcare, my country USA needs a program like the British government option. NHS I believe it's the name. According to many studies including Harvard, 44-45k people died from lack of healthcare. Declining insurance due to pre-existing conditions should be illegal. There needs to be a cap in out of pocket expenses that healthcare premiums can charge.
3)support renewable energy and tax breaks subsidies. During the early days of oil, the government gave them subsidies to help them grow and start up faster. Now it's renewable energy's turn. subsidies and tax breaks have helped renewable energy grow, and last two years, some renewable types of energy usages have more than doubled. Climate Change is one of our most difficult challenges, and we have to do our part to curb GHG, renewable energy is the way forward.
4)End the oil company tax breaks. Reason listed above.
5)Reduce the interest rates for student loans to be the same as the banks.
6)Bio-engineered meet AKA growing meat out of stem cells extracted from animals is the answer to the future. In fact it could be healthier than the meat grown from killing the animal since there would be no poop contamination, you can a just the levels of fats, what types of fats, and cholesterol better. for more information google 'STEMCELL BURGER'. Lets face it, meat as a very high environmental footprint, something needs to be done just like our energy sector.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat for general idea

7) Debt Crisis Massive spending cuts in the middle of a recession can be dangerous since cutting spending could kill many jobs related to government. The top priority is to fix unemployment for a stronger economy, once unemployment has dropped low enough than focus on large scale cuts where are needed.

8)When crime and punishment takes place, intent, the effects of the crime should also matter insentencing, and sometimes a pardon should be granted such as in Edward Snowdens place when he reviled that a government agent NSA is breaking a law by seizing 121 million american records. The 4th amendment states that you need a specific and reasonable warrant to a SPECIFIC person before seizing anything.

9)I believe in a strong welfare state, but one that is run efficiently. In many parts of my country, we spend over 40,000 a year on homeless PER HOMELESS, yet they are still living in poverty. This makes little sense. Reform is needed but it appears that there is an industry which is supported by homeless, at least in San Francisco.
Against the death penalty and inhumane prisons. Death penalty, we have executed innocents before.

10)Strong believer in a transparent government. We do not need a government who spies in on Americans. Seizes emails and records without a specific and reasonable warrant to a person. A government who does not hide footage or documents that the revile brutality of war. The Apache helicopter shooting should had never been kept secret, same goes for the real death count.

11)Invading another country to steal their resources is out of the question repulsive.

12)Strongly against the wars in IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN, in both countries, thousands died. In Iraq 117,000 died because of this stupid invasion, Afghanistan, although it's understandable that we NEEDED to get Bin Ladin, the situation in this country was mismanaged, over 15,000 innocents. Not to mention distabilization in IRAQ and destruction in infrastructure in both nations. The total cost of both wars will reach and surpass 5 trillion.

13)Even if Iran is building a nuclear weapon (BTW they are not there is ZERO evidence of) A preemptive strike will only worsen the situation and give them a legit reason for them to use self defense.

14) Current drone strike usage: double taps STOP attacking first respondents! If you bomb some people, there will be innocents in the mix rushing in to see whose harmed. Than you do a 2nd strike which kills the first respondents.
Signature strikes, this too needs to end. We don't know who we are hitting but there are some signatures that they are a terrorist. Sometimes these signatures are misleading. Both types of drone strikes NEED to end, as of now a few thousand innocent lives had been taken due to these drone strikes, in fact LESS than 5% are actually high level terrorist or top Al Qaeda operatives.
Personality strikes ONLY when targeting Al Qaeda. When we know who we are hitting, than we won't be killing so many innocents.

15)I am against sanctions which limit humanitarian resources from entering. UN sanctions in the past have increased poverty in countries which were sanctioned. read more http://www.globalissues.org/article/...s-of-sanctions. Since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait march 1991. These sanctions lead to the deaths of hundred of thousands and wide spread poverty.

16) Reduce out military budget substantially but gradually so we don't shock the economy, by 50% and put that money into infrastructure and scientific funding.

17)Close down foreign US military bases in Europe and most of the world. We are the only country that has hundreds of military bases around the world. As for South Korea and Japan, I am concerned about North Korea, their government does not seem sane. So I wouldn't close down military bases in those countries.
18)Foreign Aid, this needs reform, I like foreign humanitarian aid, but there can't be political strings attached. In Jamaica for example, the world bank puts so many ridiculous strings attached that you can hardly use the money to do anything that would help aside from receiving food from foreign countries, you cant use the money to start a farm update schools or hospitals.

[Kellhound]

Getting to the moral truth isn't easy, but we can setup simple rules to follow (such as: human suffering is bad or treat people as you'd like to be treated) and we'll be hitting fairly close to what is the morally right thing to do.

It's through careful consideration and analysis with reason, logic & data as our tools, that we can ascertain what the morally right thing to do is, as best as we possibly can.

So its morally ok to cut out the heart of my living enemy after defeating him in battle so long as Im ok with him doing that to me if he defeats me instead?

[Stir]

So its morally ok to cut out the heart of my living enemy after defeating him in battle so long as Im ok with him doing that to me if he defeats me instead?

No.
Again, you're trying to deliberately confuse 'opinion' with 'logic.'

One cannot exist without inflicting harm, in one way or another, on either oneself or another. Morality is what you make it. No one has a lock on absolute morality.

This is true (that existence requires harm to be done). One cannot exist without inflicting harm. This is true throughout nature. To withhold from causing harm itself also causes harm. Existence itself is then not a moral thing. It is morally neutral.

[Raeph]

No.
This is true (that existence requires harm to be done). One cannot exist without inflicting harm. This is true throughout nature. To withhold from causing harm itself also causes harm. Existence itself is then not a moral thing. It is morally neutral.

What of behavior then? Is that a byproduct of "Existence" where regardless of what we do it is by nature morally neutral, or is behavior a separate consideration from "Existence" which being separate can then be categorized morally "good" or "bad" depending on worldview, cultural norms or religious conviction?

Example:Ariel Castro was sentenced today. This was the man who kidnapped three women between 2002-2004 and held them for years in his Cleveland home, until being revealed to the authorities recently. Included in the charges was beating one women and forcing her to miscarry his child 5 times, as well as forcing one of the women to carry his child to term. During the three women's ordeal, over 11 years, they were all repeatedly beaten, bound and raped, to say nothing of the original kidnapping.

Is his behavior a byproduct of his "Existence", in which case it is morally neutral, or is his behavior separate from his "existence" in which case the victims and the justice system is correct in making a moral judgement of his behavior?

[Kellhound]

No.
Again, you're trying to deliberately confuse 'opinion' with 'logic.'

This is true (that existence requires harm to be done). One cannot exist without inflicting harm. This is true throughout nature. To withhold from causing harm itself also causes harm. Existence itself is then not a moral thing. It is morally neutral.

Then you must remove "do unto others" from your statement, as I am doing unto others as I would have them do unto me.

[Yvaelle]

I'm disgusted of the notion that somebody goes on to rationalise their clearly harmful deeds to begin with.

Agreed, but I find it scarier to think of someone not rationalizing a terrible act - but simply passing it off without even consideration based on an appeal to a higher moral authority. Absolutism runs the risk that it prevents critical analysis and can ignore context.

"Thou shalt not kill" is absolutist, and it sounds great on paper - but I think almost everyone will agree there are situations where killing can be a greater good (defense of a third party, etc). As soon as we accept that, we're effectively saying "thou shalt kill sometimes, when the situation calls for it" - that's relativist - because now we need to define which situations are permissible and which are not.

In theory, in the pub after a good philosophy of ethics lecture, we can define all variables for when killing is and is not permissible - and we can probably even draw up some absolutes (ie. utilitarians would say 'killing is permissible whenever the alternative appears to lead to even greater suffering for all involved'). The problem is, life doesn't occur in theory - the hardest moral choices are often made with the least amount of time for forethought - leaving people to try to approximate complex social equations very quickly.

Absolute morality sounds great in a philosophy class, but morality as it is practiced by living people? We're all relativists - whether by the uncertainty of life, or the lack of time to process, we do what we can with what we have - and sometimes that's horrible in retrospect. Absolutism is almost always practiced with the benefit of hindsight - and when it isn't - the Nuremberg Defense is the result.

We can argue that practice doesn't necessarily make something right - I agree - but if absolutism can't be practiced morally, then it's useless - and that leaves us with moral relativism and per locus decision making.

[GreatOak]

WOW, I mean WOW, Really?


Signers of the Declaration of independence, and what they did for a living.

George Read: Lawyer
Caesar Rodney: Self educated Judge.
Thomas McKean: Lawyer
George Clymer: Merchant (today we would say CEO)
Benjamin Franklin: Self taught genius, by today's standards he would be a Rockstar Physicist, like Neil Degrasse Tyson
Robert Morris: Merchant (today he would be a Billionaire Banker)
John Morton: surveyor (aka Civil Engineer)
Benjamin Rush: Physician (Medical Doctor)
George Ross: Lawyer & Judge
James Smith: Lawyer
James Wilson: Lawyer & Judge
George Taylor: Ironmaster (Iron Worker)
John Adams: Lawyer
Samuel Adams: Tax Collector (today he would have been an IRS agent)
John Hancock: Merchant (Today Billionaire Playboy would be the term)
Robert Treat Paine: Lawyer & Judge
Elbridge Gerry: Merchant Politician, inverter of gerrymandering
Josiah Bartlett: Physician & Judge
William Whipple: Soldier of fortune
Matthew Thornton: Physician
Stephen Hopkins: Self-educated Lawyer
William Ellery: Harvard Lawyer and a genius (graduated at 15 years old)
Lewis Morris: Rich Farmer (Agricultural tycoon)
Philip Livingston: Merchant (Self Made billionaire)
Francis Lewis: Former indentured servant in the Royal Navy, merchant.
William Floyd:inheritor of wealth
Button Gwinnett: Mercantile (Retail employee)
Lyman Hall: Physician
George Walton: Lawyer & Judge
*Richard Henry Lee: Farmer (Slave owning Rich agriculturalist)
*Francis Lightfoot Lee: Farmer (Slave owning Rich agriculturalist) Professional Revolutionary.
*Carter Braxton: Bankrupt former Farmer (Bankrupt former slave owninlg Rich agriculturalist)
*Benjamin Harrison: Farmer (Slave owning Rich agriculturalist)
*Thomas Jefferson: Genius, Scientist, Farmer (Slave owning Rich agriculturalist) possibly an early example of a Nerd.
*George Wythe: Lawyer & Educator (America's first Professor of Law)
*Thomas Nelson Jr.: Farmer (Slave owning Rich agriculturalist)
*William Hooper: Lawyer
*John Penn: Lawyer
*Joseph Hewes: Shipping
*Edward Rutledge:Lawyer
*Arthur Middleton: Politician
*Thomas Lynch Jr.: Politician
*Thomas Heyward Jr.: Lawyer
*Abraham Clark: Surveyor, Lawyer, Sheriff (Math Genius)
John Hart: Farmer (Billionaire land owner)
Francis Hopkinson: Lawyer, Judge, Author
Richard Stockton: Lawyer
John Witherspoon: Clergyman, Author, Educator
Samuel Huntington: Self-educated Lawyer
Roger Sherman: Lawyer
William Williams: Merchant (Multinational business man)
Oliver Wolcott: Soldier
*Charles Carroll of Carrollton: Lawyer
*Samuel Chase: Lawyer
*Thomas Stone: Lawyer
*William Paca: Lawyer

I'm a direct ancestor of his. I want my money.

[FAILoZOFF]

In Europe or at least in my country (Poland) there is such thing as conservative-liberal (specially pre world war polish conservative-liberals they would be called something akin to libertarians!) but don't let it fool you, its not "middle" its "far right" if you count social-democrats, stalin, lenin, hitler and any random communist scum dictator (not that i mind dictators, just leftist ones- words cant express my hatred towards democracy). Wouldn't mind return of monarchy tbh.