First Principles

I think we would agree that cannabalism is wrong as is pre meditated murder. If you don't think it is objectively true that murder and eating another person is wrong no matter when or where you live than there is not much we can truly discuss.

Quote: FrGamble

I think we would agree that cannabalism is wrong as is pre meditated murder. If you don't think it is objectively true that murder and eating another person is wrong no matter when or where you live than there is not much we can truly discuss.

I think it's wrong but the people
doing it obviously don't. You
want it to be universally written
in stone handed down from
god wrong. This brings us back
to the argument that killing
people is wrong, unless you do
it for a good reason. Capital
punishment, war, mercy killing,
self defense, etc. Every truth
has a caveat attached.

caveat;
a proviso of specific stipulations, conditions

Quote: Evenbob

I think it's wrong but the people
doing it obviously don't.

How does what people believe effect if something is true or wrong or right? Can someone believe something is true and it still be false? Can someone believe something is good and it still be evil?

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You want it to be universally written
in stone handed down from
god wrong. This brings us back
to the argument that killing
people is wrong, unless you do
it for a good reason. Capital
punishment, war, mercy killing,
self defense, etc. Every truth
has a caveat attached.

caveat;
a proviso of specific stipulations, conditions

Caveats are important. That is why we don't call someone who died in a car accident a murder victim or why someone who kills someone defending his family is not charged with pre-meditated murder. I don't understand why you bring this up. Murder of an innocent person is wrong, universally and objectively. If there are other conditions such as soldiers in war, self-defense, etc. it doesn't mean that murder is a good thing, does it? Nuance, caveats, and circumstances are part of an intelligent conversation about morality but it doesn't mean that there is no such thing as morality. There are universally and objectively true statements. Do you want everything to be considered true or good based on each individual person or the whims of a group of people?

Quote: FrGamble

Murder of an innocent person is wrong, universally and objectively.

Is any person innocent of everything?

Quote: FrGamble

How does what people believe effect if something is true or wrong or right?

Let's say Tarzan was a real person
who was raised in the jungle by
apes. He has nobody to tell him
what's true or right or wrong.
What he observes is all he's got.
Our beliefs are shaped by the society
we live in. Do you really think
Tarzan will have the same set of
values as a person raised in a
Western city?

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Do you want everything to be considered true or good based on each individual person or the whims of a group of people?

But our modern laws are based on
exactly that. We all agree that
certain kinds of killing is ok and
some are not. The military can
wipe out a hundred innocent
people in a village in order to
complete a larger mission and it's
called 'collateral damage'. A cop
can kill a bank robber and we
thank him. Right or wrong is
what we all agree that it is, it
doesn't exist out there beyond
us. How could it. Did you ever
finish the Dershowitz book?
That was his conclusion also.

Quote: Evenbob

Let's say Tarzan was a real person
who was raised in the jungle by
apes. He has nobody to tell him
what's true or right or wrong.
What he observes is all he's got.
Our beliefs are shaped by the society
we live in. Do you really think
Tarzan will have the same set of
values as a person raised in a
Western city?

Of course not, but that doesn't answer any of the questions we have been asking. What Tarzan or people who murder and eat people believe doesn't determine if something is right, wrong, or true. The question is what you think makes an objectively true statement and one that is subjectively speculative? What Tarzan, you, or me believe does not and cannot determine if something is true.

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But our modern laws are based on
exactly that.

Not really. Was slavery a good thing when it was legal and a bad thing when it became illegal?

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Right or wrong is
what we all agree that it is, it
doesn't exist out there beyond
us. How could it. Did you ever
finish the Dershowitz book?
That was his conclusion also.

Wow, I was wondering if anyone else besides me read the book and I guess not. He wrote the book to try to find some ground or foundation to base right or wrong on besides God (which he did not do by the way). He knew he couldn't determine right or wrong positively based on what we agree upon so he tried to take the approach based on what we all acknowledge as wrong, such as murder, wiping out a village , eating people, etc. All things which you seem to be allowing based on people's beliefs.

Quote: FrGamble

What Tarzan, you, or me believe does not and cannot determine if something is true.

It's an agreement among everybody, it
always has been. We decide what our
rights and wrongs are.

]q]Was slavery a good thing when it was legal and a bad thing when it became illegal?

Quote: Evenbob

It's an agreement among everybody, it
always has been. We decide what our
rights and wrongs are.

Again, that doesn't make what we decide on to be true or right.

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Was slavery a good thing when it was legal and a bad thing when it became illegal?

Neither. At the time it was looked at
as a necessary thing.

Surely you don't really believe this? Slavery is neither good or bad? Is rape also neither good nor bad?

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You want to break everything down to
a vivid black and white, when it's
often a just a milky gray.

Life is full of shades of gray. However, that doesn't mean that some things are objectively bad or good, true or false. What you are referring to seems to be our culpability and that is very gray at best. But surely you agree that things are either good or bad, true or false when we put aside our human weakness and the various circumstances we find ourselves in as we live life.

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Sure he did. He summed it up as
the laws and rights and wrongs
we have now come from thousands
of years of massive human rights
violations and our slowly realizing
what we had to do to have a decent
society where all are treated fairly.
It was morality evolution, not some
god.

So you are saying that we discover over time that there are true human rights and things that are objectively wrong and that treating people fairly and equally is an objective truth and good, no matter what someone might think or believe. I concur with that.

Quote: FrGamble

Again, that doesn't make what we decide on to be true or right.

Truth is what we say it is in the
subjective world. How could it
be any other way.

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Slavery is neither good or bad?

Good for the slavers and owners.
Bad for society, bad for the slaves.
Nothing has a label until we
put one on it. Do you really think
the plantation owners were
crying themselves to sleep over
how evil they were? They thought
they were good upstanding Xtions.

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But surely you agree that things are either good or bad, true or false

Everything is in context. Drunk
driver kills a pedestrian. Bad.
Mortician who handled the body
gets paid and makes his mortgage
payment. Good.

When did the bad thing morph
into a good thing. How did such a
bad thing produce good results
for somebody. It's all a matter
of where your standing when it
happens. You want everything
in black and white, pre labeled.
It doesn't work that way.

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true human rights

Why does the word 'true' have
to be there. They're just human
rights that work that evolved
over a long period of time.
Truth had nothing to do with it.
Why do you try and make the
easy to understand complicated.

Quote: Evenbob

Truth is what we say it is in the
subjective world. How could it
be any other way.

I'm sorry but you can't just make up your own truth.

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Good for the slavers and owners.
Bad for society, bad for the slaves.
Nothing has a label until we
put one on it.

And the rightful and true label for slavery is evil. It was not good for the slavers or anyone, why would you say that? Do you think good is just measured by if it makes you money even if it destroys and tortures human beings? Is that considered good for you? Why can't you admit that things like slavery and rape and murder are not good things and are evil and wrong?

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Everything is in context. Drunk
driver kills a pedestrian. Bad.
Mortician who handled the body
gets paid and makes his mortgage
payment. Good.

Again you are confused here. Providing a service for those who have lost a loved one is a good thing. Making money for your business is a good thing. However, killing someone by drunk driving is a bad thing. They are different things but somehow you want to conflate them together.

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When did the bad thing morph
into a good thing.

It did not. They are totally different things.

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It's all a matter
of where your standing when it
happens. You want everything
in black and white, pre labeled.
It doesn't work that way.

It does not matter at all where you are standing when it happens. Killing someone by drunk driving is not a good thing no matter what. You don't want admit that and it doesn't work that way.

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Why does the word 'true' have
to be there. They're just human
rights that work that evolved
over a long period of time.
Truth had nothing to do with it.
Why do you try and make the
easy to understand complicated.

I think you are trying to make the easy to understand by complicating things. Human rights are true or not. Treating human beings equally and fair is truly a good thing. Why do you try to deny that and seem to suggest that equality and fairness at some point became good things? I agree that our understanding of what this means evolves over time, but there was never a time when inequality and unfairness was a good or virtuous thing.