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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Azzy" data-source="post: 8028316" data-attributes="member: 6563">The problem with the idea of moral absolutism is that not person, culture, civilization throughout history can agree on the precepts of what the absolite is. There are no precepts that are completely universal and written in stone (so to speak). Sure, there's some basic overlap on ideals, but there is no quantifiable list that we can look at and all agree upon—especially once you start getting into details. Moral absolutism has been used to justify a lot of nasy things in history. The people that practice honor killing think that their morals are the absolute, while those who practiced chattle slavery professed that their morals were absolute, and I'm sure that the nazis, those who bomb abortion clinics, those that opposed civil rights, etc. were all assured that their ideal of morality was absolute. This self-assured sense that what you believe is right and that all others are wrong has led to some terrible things. We all need to be aware that our biases, culture, religion, etc. all shape what our ideals of good and evil are, and that they differ from the past and from person/culture/religion/etc. to the next. Is there some cosmic ideal of what is good and what is evil that exists beyond human definition? If there is, it hasn't been shown to us, otherwise there would be a universal agreement and we would certainly have less conflict between people with ideas of what's wrong and right at the center of things.</blockquote>

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