Atheists only vote please: Do absolute MORAL truths exist? Is Rape ALWAYS "wrong"?

[The Reality Salesman01]

Fuck it. I'm not going to quit posting here just because I got upset.

Had the question been "Should rape be made legal?", then I don't think anyone here would've answered "yes". And in fact, I haven't seen one post here trying to justify rape. What I was saying is that whatever criteria you put to determine whether something is morally right or wrong, the rapist is still going to disagree. It does not mean I think he is justified in that. I still, for all practical purposes, see rape as always wrong (like I said in my first response).

The question posed in the OP was a philosophical question. So I answered in that sort of framework.

Anyhow, I apologize for harming all members who got triggered by my posts. I want to make it very clear that was not my intention and that I was just trying to answer it from a purely logical perspective (in my view at least). With my answers, I failed to empathize with those who been through bad experiences in life related to this matter, and I apologize as well to Rebecca for the misattribution regarding lack of objectivity.

She's good peeps. She'll forgive ya. Good on you for making amends and coming back.

[rexbeccarox]

Thanks RS

[Whateverist]

Can't?

You seem to suppose that the survival of a species is of sufficient importance that its continuance would justify rape. Is that what you mean?

Why can't it be that if a species cannot survive without rape, then it ought not survive?

Animals are not the same as humans.... They rape each other...they don't seem to care much. Maybe it's not their favorite but I don't think they suffer any emotional trauma.

Take snails for example. They are the most sexually perverse of any creature I know. When snails mate it is a strange dance comprised of shooting love darts that can actually kill the other snail. At the same time they impregnate one another since they are hermaphroditic. Not much romance about it but certainly lots of passion which can become lethal. Nothing consensual about it, much more fierce than Klingons.

But that is the way evolution has worked out in their case. It would be silly to point a shaming finger at them. They simply do what they do.

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Gast...t_shooting

[Mudhammam]

whateverist, where are you in your signature? That looks awesome!

[bennyboy]

whateverist, where are you in your signature? That looks awesome!

Yes, but who's that guy standing next to you? You are way out of his league!

[Whateverist]

Nestor, I was visiting a couple who garden in Walsall*, UK in 2008. I'd admired their garden pictures for years on flickr** and inquired if I might visit when the wife and I went on a tour I organized. They were incredibly generous and gracious. Their garden making is so different than what I am inspired to make, but I find it enthralling.

*Home town to at least 2 members, including an admin and a mod.

** https://www.flickr.com/photos/fourseasonsgarden/sets/

[Thumpalumpacus]

I think the question was more intended to probe the question of how rape or anything immoral is wrong, rather than whether or not this specific act itself is.

Well, yes. And the OP chose this particular act precisely because its emotional impact would skew the conversation, and give him the pleasure of seeing atheists agree with the basic tenet of his theistic morality.

[pocaracas]

In a society like Ancient Greece, where slavery is commonplace, a slave is property.
Like a car is property, or a table is property.... or a sex-toy is property.
As property, consent is not required, and resistance is not advisable, so it is to be expected that many slave owners had sex with their slaves. Is that rape?
From the societal point-of-view, that would have been perfectly normal and not rape. Rape would be reserved for free-folk.


Is it rape when you have sex with a blow-up doll?
How about one of those "realistic" dolls that cost as much as a house?
How about is it's a realistic doll with Artificial Intelligence?
What if it's a cybernetic doll, half-biological, half-silicon with AI and appearance of feelings ([url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092746/]cherry 2000 reference)?
When does sex with property become rape?


Am I going way too out of the box?
Or just shadowing a despicable act (rape) with worse one (slavery)?
Is slavery always wrong?

[DeistPaladin]

I haven't read this whole thread yet but I've come across this part which indicates you may have two different things confused with each other:

How would one go on to defend "subjective morality", by providing an instance where rape is "good", and "not the wrong thing to do"? If morality is subjective, entire cultures could deem rape as acceptable or even "good". Are they wrong, or is the "wrongness" of rape then only determined by the number of people who believe it to be wrong? Is there no higher law than our own opinion on the matter, or is there something bigger than the world, that makes it wrong despite society's opinion? Are the people who regard it as acceptable, simply "wrong"?

You seem to have "subjective morality" confused with "relativistic morality".

This is an important distinction. I believe that morality is subjective but NOT relative.

The distinction is based on the understanding that not all subjective opinions are equal. Some have more objective data to support them. Some have more internal consistency. Some are better supported by logical arguments. These opinions are stronger than ones that are just based on the bare assertions of opposing opinions.

If this were not so, all trials would end in hung juries because "gee whiz, the prosecution says 'guilty' and the defense says 'not guilty' and who can really say who's opinion is more valid?"

For example:
Once I hired this guy as a sales person. At his 90 day review, I fired him. He felt he was a "good sales person" while I did not. We both had different subjective opinions here. But my opinion was supported by the objective data of zero new clients, zero cross-sales to existing clients and zero recovered lost accounts. Hence, my subjective evaluation was supported by objective data while his was simply based on his bare assertions to the contrary.

"Moral Relativism" is the idea that not only is there no objective moral truths (whatever that even is supposed to mean) but that there are no moral claims that can be made at all, that all ideas of right and wrong are just opinions. This philosophy only makes sense if you also subscribe to "solipsism", the idea that reality itself is up for grabs and that all knowledge is just opinion.

Moral claims, while subjective in nature, can be supported by logical arguments, judged by internal consistency and validated by objective reality. What damage is done? What are the short term and long term consequences? Is there a victim? Would you want something done to you as it was done to the victim?

Morality can't be plugged into a spread sheet. We can't do the "number crunching" to determine what is right and wrong. There are no units of measure for morality as there are for temperature, distance, mass and velocity. Morality is not a substance. It can't be measured like matter or energy. Therefore morality is not objective.

Morality involves evaluation. We use words like "moral judgment" which indicate that we understand it is subjective. Subjective, by definition, is not free from an individual's judgment, opinion or evaluation. It is the domain of philosophy, not science. Therefore, morality is subjective.

There are consequences to our actions. There are real effects that we can objectively measure. Therefore, we can philosophically discuss morality in a coherent way. Therefore, morality is not relative.

Hope this helps.

[Thumpalumpacus]

"Moral Relativism" is the idea that not only is there no objective moral truths (whatever that even is supposed to mean) but that there are no moral claims that can be made at all, that all ideas of right and wrong are just opinions. This philosophy only makes sense if you also subscribe to "solipsism", the idea that reality itself is up for grabs and that all knowledge is just opinion.

It only means that the morality of an action is dependent on who is doing the deed, and who is doing the judging. An example is killing: if the killer is not a person acting under a certain set of circumstances, the killing is regarded as immoral. If the killing is under the color of law, it is said to be "justifiable" (meaning morally justifiable). Example: compare a soldier to a serial-killer. They both kill multiple people; the serial killer is put to death, while the soldier is given some medals and a pension.

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

The term ‘moral relativism’ is understood in a variety of ways. Most often it is associated with an empirical thesis that there are deep and widespread moral disagreements and a metaethical thesis that the truth or justification of moral judgments is not absolute, but relative to some group of persons.

Wikipedia:

Moral relativism may be any of several philosophical positions concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different people and cultures. Descriptive moral relativism holds only that some people do in fact disagree about what is moral; meta-ethical moral relativism holds that in such disagreements, nobody is objectively right or wrong; and normative moral relativism holds that because nobody is right or wrong, we ought to tolerate the behavior of others even when we disagree about the morality of it.

Not all descriptive relativists adopt meta-ethical relativism, and moreover, not all meta-ethical relativists adopt normative relativism. Richard Rorty, for example, argued that relativist philosophers believe "that the grounds for choosing between such opinions is less algorithmic than had been thought", but not that any belief is equally as valid as any other.

Moral relativism has been espoused, criticized, and debated for thousands of years, from ancient Greece and India to the present day, in diverse fields including philosophy, science, and religion.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Moral relativism is the view that moral judgments are true or false only relative to some particular standpoint (for instance, that of a culture or a historical period) and that no standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others.

Solipsism is not necessary to accept moral relativity both as a description of human views on morality, and also as a prescriptive basis for actions -- namely, the tolerance of values outside our own sociocultural spectrum.

Therefore, we can philosophically discuss morality in a coherent way. Therefore, morality is not relative.

This is a non sequitur. It may well be that the differing moralities have areas of overlap, some large, some small, which permit those who hold different moral values to still discuss those morals, and differences, coherently.

And even if they couldn't have that discussion, it doesn't demonstrate that morality is absolute.