The problem of evil

This example seems to be based on the idea that all moral rules have the same “weight”.

That’s not the case. Even if a person believes in objective morals, he can say that stealing a bomb, although morally wrong is the preferable action to allowing people to be blown up by the bomb which is also morally wrong. The lesser of two wrongs.

IOW, there is a hierarchy in moral rules.

From what you wrote.

Perhaps I read you wrong.

I thought you were trying to take the judgements out of our consciousness. “Well, stealing is wrong, but what constitutes stealing is up to your conscience to decide. It’s like that I think. I mean, absent laws n stuff.”

Apologies.

I thought that your “Well, stealing is wrong”, was being offered as an objective moral tenet.

Regards
DL

Correct, in a sense, and that is why I think they are all subjective and not objective.

The hierarch can be adjusted by need.

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I, again, might be reading you wrong but this seems to disagree with what you put above.

"This example seems to be based on the idea that all moral rules have the same “weight”.

That’s not the case.

Regards
DL

Objective morality says that there is one correct evaluation of the morality of any particular situation.

Subjective morality says that there can be several different correct evaluations of the morality of a particular situation, depending on who is doing the evaluating.

“Need” is simply one factor within a particular situation. “Need” has nothing to do with whether morality is objective or subjective.

True on your last, again while denying that morality is objective. You have yet to show an example of objective morality so do not clutter the discussion without an example. No one can know what the hell you are referring to.

As to need, it is certainly a factor in determining morality.

youtube.com/watch?v=Xa6c3OTr6yA

Regards
DL

I’m not even arguing whether or not morality is objective or subjective.

I merely stated what makes a morality objective or subjective.

I think that I can participate in any way that I choose.

Consider it clutter if you want. I don’t decide how you evaluate it.

I spelled it out pretty clearly.

Ok.

Regards
DL

There are lots of ways to feel guilty that have nothing to do with religion. For instance, I feel guilty because I was mean to James and now he’s gone. No one told me to feel guilty and there is no law saying I should, but it just is. I find most of the time that I get mad at someone online, I endup feeling bad about it later because I lacked understanding at the time. So I don’t know… we need a general road map to follow and let our conscience guide the nuances. I can’t think of a better way.

That’s a good observation. I suppose psychopaths have the advantage in society, but probably couldn’t form a homogeneous one because it doesn’t confer any societal benefit. If society is deemed good, then psychopaths are deemed bad.

In the real bible, Jesus’ words are in red, but that delineation is lost online.

Yeah, that’s what’s referred to as part of the beatitudes of the sermon on the mount.

How does that engender guilt? The idea is that God is supposed to recompense in place of our vengeance, but that presupposes that God exists. If God did exist and did look after his flock, then it would be a good way to act, but what happens is we love our enemies who then shit all over us and God does nothing because he is not there (or doesn’t care).

It is sin if she promised forever on an altar. She should feel guilty in that case.

I think conscience applies within the established framework and not everyone’s conscience is functional:

1 Timothy 4 New International Version (NIV)
4 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.

The idea is that you’re “born again” and receive a new spirit (new guiding conscience I suppose) and that separates the wheat from the weeds: one goes into the barn and the other into the oven.

The Parable of the Weeds
24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

Then he should feel guilty.

I’m not sure he assumed it was wrong. Apparently he had mind-reading abilities:

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.
18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

Well it’s true, ain’t it?

Yep, I went through that.

Some of it is deserving of guilt imo.

That could be church perversion. Much of the sexual laws were beneficial to society at the time.

Most things are mixed bags, except Alan, whose error has eluded me for some time.

Interesting. I didn’t know about that fight. Yes, why practice fighting if you intend to turn the other cheek? A fool who persists in his folly will become wise. The Buddhists beat the Samurai Brigands for the best land and temples. How? It’s like Jesus kicked Bruce’s ass somehow. How do people who don’t fight, beat the warriors?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNToJwKE4F0[/youtube]

Yes and remember God is supposed to be on your side as well in the case of those assholes who do not feel bad afterward.

If that is true then there must be some way of determining when to hit back and when to not.

In the context of Christianity, stealing is always wrong, but the nuances are left to your conscience because the law cannot possibly describe every situation. Likewise, insults are always wrong, but what constitutes insult is too variable to describe in a rule.

Jump in however you can. This is fine.

A lot of folks see it that way which is why Jesus said:

[i]38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[h] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

That’s true, but how can you be sure evolving is not devolving? Everyone thinks they are doing right.

I brought up Hitler because it’s colloquially assumed he was evil, not that he actually was. He is just representative of the general cultural idea of evil. I’m not judging him. I’m just saying that if you, by chance, assume he was evil, then consider that he thought he was doing good.

Because I’m a hypocrite like everyone else lol

Yes I would like some good advice, but no one can answer my questions it seems :frowning:

Sounds like a way to have your cake and eat it too.

In practice, it means that there will be a way to rationalize taking stuff if you want it. One is both a highly ethical person and a thief at once.

I’ve read that if someone breaks into your home and hurts themselves, they can sue you lol, so I wouldn’t be surprise if you were arrested for stealing the bomb.

What I would do would depend on who they intended to blow up :wink:

This reminds me of some philosophical puzzles from college. Who is worse: the one who holds the person under water or the one who chooses not to save a drowning person? Who is better: the one who helps little old ladies across the street because he enjoys it or because it’s his duty?

Yes you can rationalize it, but can you quell your conscience? It’s only not-wrong if you honestly and truly believe it is not wrong, not because you have a list of justifications.

I would not trust them. You’d be in jail by your own admission of guilt and the bombers would be free for lack of proof of intent or no crime committed. The justice system is not at all just, but a money-making racket mostly.

So any action is justified as long as you “honestly and truly believe” that it’s not wrong.

Seems completely unworkable for a society to adopt such an idea.

True. Morals can change depending on the environment and are in a sense just like reality are just a collective hunch.

Yes I would like some good advice, but no one can answer my questions it seems :frowning:
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What questions?

What area of life do you think your rules and laws are not the best?

Regards
DL

I disagree but that aside, my moral duty is to myself first and others later.

My duty is to act first in doing what I think is moral.
If the system I live under does not support my morality then so be it. I will spend some time in jail and some poor bunch of my fellow citizens will end in being bombed.

Better jail than dishonor.

I have a real life experience where I purposely fought the law and had 16 years of jail time hanging over my head because I put duty and my honor ahead of the possibility of jail. I am not bragging here. I am complaining as our laws should be well thought out enough that a citizen should not have to go to such extremes to fight the laws he thinks need amending.

I am more abstinent and headstrong than the average guy.

Regards
DL

Well, golly gosh. It is not the same scenario in the sense you seem to want here. It is the same idea. The intention is not to get someone’s stuff for oneself, it is to prevent great harm. The intention is not to harm someone, it is to minimize harm. Those two are very similar ideas oh, fussy one. We tend not to use negative words about things when the goal, in fact the act, is not about that negative word. There are gray areas but neither scenario is the same.

Well, I can be fussy back.
Not always. Patients come into emergency rooms unconscious sometimes and they are operated on. Sometimes they even are upset about the doctor’s choice. However he is still not maiming, even if he make the wrong medical choice. He is trying to help the greater good - in my example the greater good he is trying to help includes the patient, in your example it does not include those who had the object. But the person who removes the bomb is not a thief, nor are they stealing.

The two who are stolen from did not volunteer to have their bomb stolen.

Taking that bomb by breaking into that room is break and enter and thief, in the legal definition.

If you would not call break and enter and taking someone else’s property thief, what would you call it? The legal term would be nice.
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It would be called preventing a terrorist act. If you are about to shoot a child, I can shoot you and no one will call it murder. There are all sorts of scenarios where what would otherwise be called a crime is not called that given the situation. If you drive your car into a lake and cannot get out of your car, no one, no court, not police officer, will label my breaking the car window property damage or criminal damage as it is called in parts of the UK. They will say I saved your life. No one will say it was criminal damage, but we will not prosecute because of the reason. The situation precludes the use of that term. Get it?

And that is why my example was perfectly fine: what would be considered a crime in other circumstances is not because of those circumstances. The terrorists are never, in that scenario, victims of a crime.

Isn’t that the same reasoning that a psychopath, a serial killer, a thief, a murderer uses?

The morality that a society adopts has to be some sort of agreement about what is right and wrong conduct. And obviously some individuals will disagree for a variety of good and bad reasons.

I agree with this argument, but I think it is unnecessary. There is no crime of stealing in the scenario. In many situations we can legally, and generally are considered to be able to morally, do something that in other circumstances would be considered a crime or immoral, but is never considered that in those situations. The terrorists lose any property rights related to their bomb once it is an object part of a terrorist process. It is not as if a crime is committed but then weighed against the crime it prevented. There never was a crime. If a plane is crashing on the highway and I drive my car off the road crashing into a military base through the fence, I have not trespassed, driven negligently, criminally damaged property. And the plane’s insurance company will pick up thte tab if anyone’s does.

There may be scenarios where more minor crimes/sins get outweighed, but that wasn’t one of them.