RE: Atheists only vote please: Do absolute MORAL truths exist? Is Rape ALWAYS "wrong"?
February 19, 2015 at 8:36 pm
(This post was last modified: February 19, 2015 at 8:38 pm by Whateverist.)
I guess we're up against semantics now. I would argue that universal, objective morals are an intellectual construction of no consequence. Morals can be as real and important to someone who conceptualizes them as subjective facts rather than as objective facts. I would fall in the subjectivist category myself. But I don't think that takes anything away from moral experience.
The rapist is every bit as despicable to me as he to a moral objectivist. I just don't believe there is an objective standard which should motivate everyone. (That is what a legal system is for.) People vary a lot. Some have weak moral feeling or else it may even be altogether absent. Perhaps psychopaths have a kind of birth defect or perhaps it is just genetic variability with survival value the way those who suffer from Sickle cell anemia suffer less from Malaria.
Now the justice system as the abstraction of community standards of moral behavior is intended to be objective. That is all the objectivity I require in moral matters. To say that rape is illegal and subject to heavy penalties is enough. Unfortunately, in actual practice, victims often suffer twice, once because of the rape itself and again because of the dysfunctional way the legal system actually serves rape victims. The legal system is flawed and rapists are despicable to me. I'm fine with leaving it to each person to say whether they agree. My repugnance toward rape doesn't require that I overstate or misrepresent what is so reprehensible about it.
The rapist is every bit as despicable to me as he to a moral objectivist. I just don't believe there is an objective standard which should motivate everyone. (That is what a legal system is for.) People vary a lot. Some have weak moral feeling or else it may even be altogether absent. Perhaps psychopaths have a kind of birth defect or perhaps it is just genetic variability with survival value the way those who suffer from Sickle cell anemia suffer less from Malaria.
Now the justice system as the abstraction of community standards of moral behavior is intended to be objective. That is all the objectivity I require in moral matters. To say that rape is illegal and subject to heavy penalties is enough. Unfortunately, in actual practice, victims often suffer twice, once because of the rape itself and again because of the dysfunctional way the legal system actually serves rape victims. The legal system is flawed and rapists are despicable to me. I'm fine with leaving it to each person to say whether they agree. My repugnance toward rape doesn't require that I overstate or misrepresent what is so reprehensible about it.
