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Is there a universal morality?

MoonWater

Warrior Bard
Premium Member
Is there a universal morality? If so what is it? How do you know that that is THE universal morality and not simply morality based upon your opinion, experience, etc.? If not why not and could there ever be or was there ever a universal morality? Could humans ever agree on a universal morality? How does one determine if something is truly moral?
 

MoonWater

Warrior Bard
Premium Member
I think there is a universal morality: love one another.

While I agree with that I feel like playing devil's advocate:D. How do you know that that morality is universal? How do know that it would still be moral to "love one another" even if you didn't believe it was?
 

lunamoth

Will to love
Could you elaborate please?

I think it is self-evident in the results that when we fail to love each other things fall apart.

Now, I don't think we actually are capable of fully loving each other with unconditional love; we fall short. But, the closer we get to that ideal, the better our lives are, IMO. Where we fail in that ideal, are the various degrees of hell.
 

MoonWater

Warrior Bard
Premium Member
I think it is self-evident in the results that when we fail to love each other things fall apart.

Now, I don't think we actually are capable of fully loving each other with unconditional love; we fall short. But, the closer we get to that ideal, the better our lives are, IMO. Where we fail in that ideal, are the various degrees of hell.

So something is only moral if it keeps things together? Such emotions like anger or hatred(which are often considered bad) can serve as powerful influences to unite peoples against a common enemy. Does this make hate and anger "moral" emotions? And love can often times lead to jealousy or envy and there are many stories and historical cases of how love for one thing or person has lead to all out war.
 

Nanda

Polyanna
There is no universal morality. A lot of us have reached the same moral conclusions, because we're all human beings, but there are far too many exceptions to every supposed "rule" to say that there's any universal morality.
 

ChristineES

Tiggerism
Premium Member
There are some universal elements to morality. Such things as not murdering another person, not sleeping with your neighbor's wife (adultery),not assaulting people, not stealing. Other things are not universal, such as fornication-- Some people think it is a sin, while others think it is OK.

There aren't really all that many absolutes in the world.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
The only possible moral constant I can think of is that it's better to exist then not to exist. And I believe it's from this possible moral constant that all our ethical and moral platitudes spring.
 

MoonWater

Warrior Bard
Premium Member
There are some universal elements to morality. Such things as not murdering another person, not sleeping with your neighbor's wife (adultery),not assaulting people, not stealing. Other things are not universal, such as fornication-- Some people think it is a sin, while others think it is OK.

There aren't really all that many absolutes in the world.

What if your starving, have no money and the only way for you to survive is to steal some food from the local grocery store? What if the neighbor and his wife have nothing agianst you sleeping with the mrs., everyone involved is consenting so why would that be wrong? What if someone plans to suicide bomb a plan and the only way to stop him is to shoot him in the head? Basically do you think that there are situations where such acts as you described could be considered okay or justified? If it's justified is it still immoral?
 

MoonWater

Warrior Bard
Premium Member
The only possible moral constant I can think of is that it's better to exist then not to exist. And I believe it's from this possible moral constant that all our ethical and moral platitudes spring.

And yet if you didn't exist you wouldn't know would you? As a result it is impossible to compare the two and thus impossible to truly know which is better. Also I wouldn't be surprised to find that there are some people out there who are so depressed that they wish they didn't exist at all.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
And yet if you didn't exist you wouldn't know would you? As a result it is impossible to compare the two and thus impossible to truly know which is better.
It's impossible to "truly know" anything. Which makes that expectation moot. If it's an absolute answer you seek, then you're wasting your time.
Also I wouldn't be surprised to find that there are some people out there who are so depressed that they wish they didn't exist at all.
The fact that they continue to exist would deny their claims to the contrary.
 

ChristineES

Tiggerism
Premium Member
What if your starving, have no money and the only way for you to survive is to steal some food from the local grocery store? What if the neighbor and his wife have nothing agianst you sleeping with the mrs., everyone involved is consenting so why would that be wrong? What if someone plans to suicide bomb a plan and the only way to stop him is to shoot him in the head? Basically do you think that there are situations where such acts as you described could be considered okay or justified? If it's justified is it still immoral?

What kind of questions are those? Murder is of a person for no good reason, not killing someone to stop them killing others! The person starving isn't guilty of any sin but the people who didn't feed him and knew he was starving are. There are always circumstances to any action. Nothing is cut and dry. These questions are of extreme circumstance and not of daily happenings, anyway.
Adultery is always wrong even if it is consenting.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Isn't that assertion self-contradictory?
No. Because I can know that I don't know without knowing what I don't know.
I "truly know" that my wife is the mother of our kids. Try and stage an argument against that without sounding absurd. :D
The point I was making is about knowing universal absolutes, not relative factuality. We can know "this" relative to "that". But relative knowledge is not absolute knowledge. We can't know anything absolutely, because absolute knowledge can't be partial. If it were partial, then we could not be certain that what we don't know wouldn't change what we think we do know to be an absolute, universal truth.
 
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