President Obama: Do you really love America?

[abaris]

Sorry you don't agree with something so basic, it's a legal no-brainer.

Premeditated murder is NOT morally equivalent to manslaughter, even in cases where the unintended death happened by the most reckless of negligence.

You obviously feel differently. I think we're at "agree to disagree" time.

Because it's intellectualistic blah blah from the top of the Ivory tower. These actions have implications and as long as we engage in a discussion if one hand is cleaner than the other, it's just jerking in front of a mirror without seeing that actions and reactions are closely linked.

And understandably so.

So morality or it's absence is totally irrelevant. It's the fundamental inanity of these discussions that make me angry. Yeah, we have good intentions (although even that is up for debate under certain circumstances) so it's all right then to bomb the shit out of them. We are the good guys after all, so why do they hate us?

And for the record. The other side has motives too that go beyond killing as many as possible. To not see that and to not take that into consideration adds another level to the stupidity that's going on for the last 14 years.

[DeistPaladin]

By the by, by your definitely whether fgm is immoral or not depends on the intention of the mutilator doesn't it? So if they do it with good intentions...

Oooo, excellent rejoinder and skillfully done. But at least in this case I do have an answer: the motive is utterly insane. It's based upon bogus notions of "sexual purity" completely based on unproven assertions regarding the existence of deities and the wills thereof.

How about circumcision. Is it immoral to hold down a screaming newborn and lop off a part of his little chap

It should be the choice of the child when they are old enough to understand that choice.

Nope. That would be amorality. That's like saying "if you compare student grades to each other, all grades are equal.

As far as I can tell, moral relativism is amorality. If morality is simply opinion, what is the difference between that and amorality?

[Anomalocaris]

The difference between morality and immorality is not relativism, but consistency. immorality is the opportunistic use of any standard of morality purely for one's own benefit.

[DeistPaladin]

Because it's intellectualistic blah blah from the top of the Ivory tower.

No, it's the law. It's so much a no-brainer that every society I know of operates this way according to how they punish those who cause the death of another. That's not just academic. That's how it's practically applied in real life.

So morality or it's absence is totally irrelevant. It's the fundamental inanity of these discussions that make me angry.

Sorry about that but it sounds like a different topic, one certainly worthy of discussion as well: what foreign policy works and what doesn't?

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The difference between morality and immorality is not relativism, but consistency. immorality is the opportunistic use of any standard of morality purely for one's own benefit.

Sorry, I'm not following. Can you please elaborate?

[Anomalocaris]

Sorry, I'm not following. Can you please elaborate?

To be moral is to act according to the notion that There exist some standard to which all could appeal, not specifically what that standard happen to be.

Immorality is to attempt to not allow others to appeal the same standard to justify their actions as that to which we had appealed to justify ours. It has nothing to do with whether that standard in question is regarded as having more validity than mere opinion.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yep. I'd consider that moral relativism makes a lot more sense than moral absolutism. The idea that morality exists as a binary state, or exists independently of context and environment makes little sense to me. But I'm available to be persuaded on that one if you can offer a few universally applicable moral absolutes and provide the basis for them.

Two words:

"Social Contract"

Allow me to pick one example to illustrate my point: female genital mutilation.

Sane societies consider pinning a screaming four year old girl to a table while someone else takes out a knife and hacks away at her genitals, maiming her for life and rendering her unable to ever enjoy sex and possibly killing her if she bleeds to death, to be a horrid, barbaric and immoral practice.

Moral relativists will say that it's only "our cultural perspective" that causes us to be sickened by this act and that some societies consider the act to be one of "sexual purification" and a good thing. So gee whiz, when one society deems it wrong and another society deems it right, who can say...

Who can say?

How about the screaming four year old girl?

I'm sure she's have an opinion worth considering.

At best, moral relativism is sloppy and lazy thinking. At worst, it's morally bankrupt, at its heart asserting that morality doesn't really exist and any assertions about right and wrong are merely opinions enforced by whoever has the might and numbers to enforce them.

EDIT: Oh, and by the way, once you've asserted "moral relativism", you've abandoned any right to be morally indignant about anything. If you really believe in moral relativism, then pretty much anything goes. So at that point, you've have no cause to judge anyone's drone strikes. "They consider it good. You consider it bad. Who can say..."

Given the discussion we had the other day, and the information you were given then, from reputable sources, you have no business shopping the above over simplistic caricature around, because (assuming you read those sources), you should know better.

[DeistPaladin]

Immorality is to attempt to not allow others to appeal the same standard to justify their actions as that to which we had appeals to justify ours.

I think the word you're looking for is hypocrisy.

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Given the discussion we had the other day, and the information you were given then, from reputable sources, you have no business shopping the above over simplistic caricature around, because (assuming you read those sources), you should know better.

Sorry, I don't remember. Link?

[abaris]

No, it's the law. It's so much a no-brainer that every society I know of operates this way according to how they punish those who cause the death of another. That's not just academic. That's how it's practically applied in real life.

Sorry, we're not talking about John Nobody going on a killing spree and Jim Upright making a mistake shooting the wrong guy.

We're talking about foreign policy, since this whole thread is about it. So the law is irrelevant and - I gladly double down on it - blah, blah. There is no court hearing both sides on the matter before coming to a decision. There's only action, reaction and basic human emotions to consider. And that's what's not happening.

[Anomalocaris]

Immorality is to attempt to not allow others to appeal the same standard to justify their actions as that to which we had appeals to justify ours.

I think the word you're looking for is hypocrisy.

It is a particular type of hypocrisy which negates the basic justification for demanding common acceptance of any system of morality, whether that system is relative or absolute.

[DeistPaladin]

Sorry, we're not talking about John Nobody going on a killing spree and Jim Upright making a mistake shooting the wrong guy.

Actually, we are.

Terrorists intend to murder civilians.

Killing innocent civilians by mistake is not necessarily the same thing.

Next?