Anti-Muslim Film Boorish and Boring

On Apr 11, 6:29 pm, wrote:

"Justice, Morality, AND Ethics"
are all cultural... almost exclusively
cultural in nature. I can't imagine
any of them even existing without
a culture for them in which to exist.

It is true that justice, morality, and ethics are most relevant when
there is more than one person around.

That doesn't imply, however, that what is fair or kind in treating
other people is simply an arbitrary decision by any given group of
people, and that common consent can make things like infanticide or
slavery right.

No; instead, one starts with the inherent rights of human individuals,
which can be discerned through reason, and from there, one can deduce
what constitutes morality and justice. We can distinguish between free
societies that are fair to their members, and societies that commit
aggressive war, societies that commit discrimination, and societies
that are not free.

John Savard

On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 06:33:44 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
wrote:

That doesn't imply, however, that what is fair or kind in treating
other people is simply an arbitrary decision by any given group of
people, and that common consent can make things like infanticide or
slavery right.

Those things have, however, been considered "right" in different
cultures. The question of whether there are such a things as right and
wrong in any absolute sense, or such a thing as innate human rights, is
certainly interesting. But such questions remain in the realm of
philosophy, and I doubt they can be answered (or can only be answered
within specific cultural contexts).


No; instead, one starts with the inherent rights of human individuals,
which can be discerned through reason, and from there, one can deduce
what constitutes morality and justice. We can distinguish between free
societies that are fair to their members, and societies that commit
aggressive war, societies that commit discrimination, and societies
that are not free.

Of course we can distinguish between them. But I don't think we can say
that they are good or bad, only that they are good or bad relative to
the invented standards we choose to compare them with.
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Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com