He's arguing in favor of normative moral relativism and because that's what he espouses no one can be right or wrong nor can any conclusion be reached debating the ethics someone has shown without there being some real standard to gauge the action. Is raping a baby worse than stealing a stick of gum? Cliff can say yes. Is killing a baby seal for its pelt worse than washing your car? Its relative. Depends on the entire situation. Are you trying keep your baby from freezing and is the car wash in a drought ridden area in the Sahara where children only get one cup of water a day to drink? Since it's so hard to determine anything normal, then anything can be determined to be correct and there's no actual normalcy. He states this in opposition to some kind of moral absolute.MichaelScott wrote:How very Zen of you.Cliff Stamp wrote:The first step is that you must realize there is no step.SpeedHoles wrote:I want further details on how to count to potato.
Morals are cultural artifacts and determined by time and culture, not absolute values. I think we all know that. Absolutism kinda died with Einstein, Kant not withstanding. Chemical and neurological "brain states" don't dictate behaviors and decisions and there really is no one "brain state" as is shown by current neuroscience research. There are many brain functions and interactive regions working in synchrony to effect human behavior.
Proposing limited and constrained examples and positing "moral conundrums" may a display a certain familiarity with many topics but your arguments wander, often fail to address the relevant points if not miss them entirely.
I am open to cogent and reasoned discussion, supported by evidence, but I'm not finding that in your dissertations. Please be more concise and stick to the point.
In most people's mind there are certain absolutes that define and determine what someone considers right and wrong but his neighbor can easily see an exactly opposite light. The blacks and whites on the TV are opposite. Take homosexuality as an example. Bob may think it's abhorrent. Jim may think it's fine. Are either Jim or Bob absolutely and definitely correct in their beliefs? No one can say except Jim and Bob and even then what they say only defines what they specifically believe.
The problem with that is the beliefs held by Jim and Bob don't inherently interfere with anyone else so of course it's completely relative and no one but Jim and Bob can or should speak for or against Jim and Bob unless you agree with them. There ARE defined and established moral parameters that can and should be shared across cultures, nations, tribes, or any other class, genre, or other genre of people. That's to not infringe on the life, liberty, or property of other people without their consent. If it's questionable, don't do it. If it's a gray area, err on the side of caution. If it's a choice between a horrible action and a bad but much less horrible action, then choose the lesser of two evils. Moral absolutism has its place just like moral relativism.
The debate revolves around the fact that Cliff thinks this specific issue with the guy and ecop! falls into a gray area where one person listed a price and the other person accepted the price. There's nothing to compare it to, only comeuppance and ecop! should say whether it's right or wrong. Since ecop! has no legal recourse, then that's that, problem solved and only ecop! and comeuppance should be speaking about it at all, just like the aforementioned Jim and Bob.
Others believe it's not a gray area. It's black and white, absolute. Guy watched another guy drop his rent payment on the ground and instead of returning it to its owner who was right in front of him, he pocketed it and then gave away a small portion to charity in some kind of repentance. There's no gray area. The guy should've returned the rent payment, or tried to anyway.
Two camps, two opposing views. I personally think the only moral absolute is to be able to live how you want as long as it doesn't interfere with anyone else. If there's probable cause to believe it does, then a jury of peers decides the morality of the situation based on if or how much it interfered with the life, liberty, or property of another. One law, don't f*** with anyone else and their stuff, and it applies to all entities, government, businesses, and individuals. One exception, the lives/safety of someone else, ie self defense and the defense of others. That's an absolute in my mind. It's my opinion, obviously, that this dude screwed with the property of another without their honest and willful consent. Other people think differently.
Let's see if it works this time :)