My views on objective morality
March 9, 2016 at 9:09 pm
(This post was last modified: March 9, 2016 at 9:22 pm by LadyForCamus.)
(March 9, 2016 at 8:44 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:(March 9, 2016 at 1:02 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: In other words, if such a judgement of gratuitous versus necessary evil can never be considered objectively morally acceptable here amongst us humans, is it not special pleading to give God allowance to do it for reason unknowable to us?
That would make such an actor immoral, if valid, but it wouldn't be special pleading as no fallacy is involved. I don't know that we don't allow some harm to fall for the greater good. We take people's hard earned money to pay for roads, schools, military and all whatnot. Is that not sacrificing someone's interests in the name of the greater good? This is a subject which comes up in utilitarian ethics where the straight formula is that what is moral is whatever delivers the greatest good for the most people. We disallow certain things because systematically they would lead to greater harm, but nothing says that we can't balance interests. Is it okay, in designing a world, to allow this kind of freedom? I don't know. I don't know what God's options were in designing this reality. If our world suffices to present the greatest total good, within the realm of the possible, would it not also be immoral to design a world with a lower overall total of goodness? So God, being omnipotent but constrained to that which is possible, may have been faced with a Hobbes choice. Are you suggesting the rest of us suffer a lesser more suffering imbued fate so that only rape victims prosper? I think in that circumstance, given lesser of evils and whatnot, God is morally permitted to 'settle' for the greater total good scenario.
That's a fair point. Humans are not perfect in that regard, though I don't think too many people could sit idly by and watch a child be raped for any kind of collective 'good of humanity.' I guess that is slippery slope...But God is supposed to be the authority on moral perfection; that which we must continually strive for but can never achieve because of our sin. If Christian X says, "under NO circumstances is it morally right to sit back and watch a child be raped and murdered because that is unquestionably, morally wrong according to God (our moral author) but...if God does it, that can be considered morally right, because he's God..." I still don't see how this isn't special pleading. Maybe I don't fully understand the fallacy its self.
To a different point though, if God himself is constrained, and has only a finite set of possibilities to work with in creating the universe and everything in it, can he still qualify as omnipotent?
Nay_Sayer: “Nothing is impossible if you dream big enough, or in this case, nothing is impossible if you use a barrel of KY Jelly and a miniature horse.”
Wiser words were never spoken.
Wiser words were never spoken.