Can we talk religion?

[Lambonius]

There are reasons why (for example) the US Constitution is phrased "we hold these truths to be self-evident".

Yeah, but on the other hand, the "we" refers to "we, the founding members of this particular society, who mostly come from a Christian upbringing."  It's really a chicken & egg issue, I think.  

[KatieHal]

It is, but it's not like ours was the first and only government to consider murder a reprehensible crime, Christian influence or no.

[Fierce Deity]

It is, but it's not like ours was the first and only government to consider murder a reprehensible crime, Christian influence or no.

There's no doubt that that is the case, but there are also certain groups of people that uphold the killing of outsiders or infidels. I think for the most part, people can construe murder as a crime or a sin, but there are cases where you can make murder almost sound like a good thing. Like, capital punishment. It's all about wordplay.

[darthkiwi]

Agreed. Why is killing bad? Because it disrupts the community. What if you're killing an outsider, or someone who doesn't fit within the community, or someone who is a human sacrifice? What if your goal is to disrupt the community?

Society only creates laws to perpetuate itself. Culture exists only to secure its own position against other cultures, to convert similar cultures into itself, and to destroy cultures it cannot convert.

[Damar]

I don't totally buy that, though.  Even when religion is taken out of the picture, people will still tend to see a higher morality that society may be built around, but was still in existence prior to society.  Whether it's a law or nature or as the US Constitution put it, certain unalienable rights (though with the forefathers' unwritten caveat of "as long as you're actually a man.  And don't have brown skin.  And as long as unalienable is actually a word.  It is, right?)

Let's take the murder example.  I think if you asked people why murder is wrong, you wouldn't have people saying that it's because it disrupts the community.  After all, people feel outraged at murders that occur in another community.  If laws and morality only existed to have societies perpetuate themselves, then that sort of thing shouldn't bother people.  People should just shrug off murders, ethnic cleansings, genocides, and such by saying, "well that's fewer of them and more room for us."  But people don't do that (outside of people filled with hate and anger or ignorance.)  Rather, I believe that people identify murder as wrong because we see people's lives as having an intrinsic worth.  People have a right to live, not just to contribute (if I went and killed a loner who lived in his parents basement and who never worked a day in his life, it would still be considered morally wrong) but to live, period.  Taking that from someone, and by extension taking the power of independent choice from another person, is an example of a higher morality that society seems to have built itself around and will enforce, rather than it being solely a construct of society.

And true, society can justify away some of that higher morality based on its own laws, but that doesn't erase the higher morality.  In fact, it reinforces the higher morality in a way.  Take Fierce Deity's example of society endorsing capital punishment.  This isn't a society justifying murder.  Rather, the conceit of capital punishment is that this individual has forfeited their natural right to life by robbing another person of that same right.  By taking power over another person, they no longer have the right to have power over their own life.  Call it a corrupt system, call it revenge based, call it whatever you want because that's not the point.  The point is that society's law, whether you agree with it or not, is trying to correct the injustice that was done in accordance with this higher morality that people see in life.  Murder is wrong and if you take someone else's right to life, then your right will be taken as well, because that natural law is bigger than all of us and bigger than society.

[Fierce Deity]

And true, society can justify away some of that higher morality based on its own laws, but that doesn't erase the higher morality.  In fact, it reinforces the higher morality in a way.  Take Fierce Deity's example of society endorsing capital punishment.  This isn't a society justifying murder.  Rather, the conceit of capital punishment is that this individual has forfeited their natural right to life by robbing another person of that same right.  By taking power over another person, they no longer have the right to have power over their own life.  Call it a corrupt system, call it revenge based, call it whatever you want because that's not the point.  The point is that society's law, whether you agree with it or not, is trying to correct the injustice that was done in accordance with this higher morality that people see in life.  Murder is wrong and if you take someone else's right to life, then your right will be taken as well, because that natural law is bigger than all of us and bigger than society.

By that example, I should be able to take the life of the executioner who killed the murderer. And so shall my life be taken by the next guy, and then the next guy's next guy, and so on so forth. "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" doesn't even begin to explain what is wrong with the system. What about war, then? Is killing okay in war because it's justified? As long as I can trivialize the importance of an outsider's life, I can make him a necessary casualty. I won't begin a war debate, but where is the line of killing being an 'okay' thing to deal with. If capital punishment is one extreme and murder is the other, where would we draw the line? Assisted suicide? Euthanasia?

[Damar]

Right, and all those issues deserve their own topics on why they would be justifiable or not.  In the case of the executioner, he's given that power because the murderer has given up the right to his own life.  Therefore it is seen as justified and the executioner is not worthy of death.  The murderer broke the higher moral law and the executioner is carrying that to its natural conclusion.  Whether capital punishment is argued to be morally right or wrong, it is justified as a means of enforcing that higher morality.

And that was my point, as opposed to attempting to justify war or execution.  Rather, the argument was made that all law is a societal construct, a means of perpetuating the community at the expense of outsiders.  I think that while there may be some societal laws that are constructs (pay your taxes and so on) there is a higher morality that these laws are built around that preexisted any community.  That's the point I was making.  People don't see murder as wrong because it hurts society.  They see it as wrong because it robs a person of their natural right of life.  That points to a higher morality, not to a social construct.  Call it a law of nature, a law of god, call it whatever, the point is that it goes beyond a cultural, man-made concept and into something that simply is.  Morality can't just be boiled down to "society creates it to perpetuate itself" for that reason, in my opinion.  It just doesn't seem to follow the view that people actually have on morality.

[Fierce Deity]

And that was my point, as opposed to attempting to justify war or execution.  Rather, the argument was made that all law is a societal construct, a means of perpetuating the community at the expense of outsiders.  I think that while there may be some societal laws that are constructs (pay your taxes and so on) there is a higher morality that these laws are built around that preexisted any community.  That's the point I was making.  People don't see murder as wrong because it hurts society.  They see it as wrong because it robs a person of their natural right of life.  That points to a higher morality, not to a social construct.  Call it a law of nature, a law of god, call it whatever, the point is that it goes beyond a cultural, man-made concept and into something that simply is.  Morality can't just be boiled down to "society creates it to perpetuate itself" for that reason, in my opinion.  It just doesn't seem to follow the view that people actually have on morality.

Right, but what I'm trying to explain as that there shouldn't be any asterisks or exceptions to the rule. Killing is killing is killing. An executioner having the right to kill someone else because that person killed somebody else is literally the form of an exception to murder. It's not like the murderer came up to the executioner and said "I forfeit my right to live, please kill me." The murderer is being killed against his will by the executioner. That is textbook definition: murder.

I'm not trying to say that what the murderer did was right, but that what the executioner is doing is no better than what the murderer did. It's just more killing. This is a simplistic observation. To try and explain that the murderer is the scum of the earth and that he deserves his just desserts is an accurate point, but to say that the executioner is just doing his job is ignoring the fact that he too is a killer and is committing an immoral act. However, when it comes to capital punishment, the executioner is being excused from murder. So if there is an exception, wouldn't that mean that the 'no-killing' law was man-made since it can be excused by man?

[Damar]

What you're describing is punishment being a social construct.  I would agree with that.  The underlying morality, though, would not be.  Like you said, murder is murder is murder.  Now if that concept of morality was purely a social construct, then there would be exceptions all over the place.  True, people will justify murder and wars and so on, but the key word there is "justify."  They have to search for an exception because the underlying morality is that murder is wrong.

Ultimately the point I'm arguing against is that morality is a purely social construct.  Laws are society's way of perpetuating itself at the expense of others.  I must grow and expand and therefore you must whither and die, or at the very least stay out of my way so that I may live.  But is that actually what we see?  I would argue it's not.  Using murder as an example, I don't live in your society.  Would you, then, feel comfortable finding me, killing me, and taking my stuff?  I'm an outsider, I have resources you could use, and if morality is purely a means of perpetuating one community over another, then you should have no problem with that.  But we don't see that in society.  Even the most egregious examples of racism and intolerance have some kind of justification behind them (they're not even people, they were trying to kill us first, we're the chosen ones) which shows that people look for an excuse to get away with doing what they want.  You only look for excuses when you need to get around something.  If morality is simply a social construct, there's nothing to get around.  You get yours by any means necessary, end of story.  We'd live in a world of sociopaths (at least when dealing with people outside your community.)  Since that's something we don't see as a general rule, it follows that there is a higher morality that society has built itself around and branched its laws from (some of which may be social constructs, but the core would not be).

Therefore not all morality is simply created by society, is my ultimate point, using murder as an example.

[darthkiwi]

Killing is not killing in all instances. The murderer killed somebody for his own personal gain. It is not the executioner who kills him, or at least, not symbolically. It is society which has decided to kill the murderer (the executioner is merely the instrument of society) and this carries more weight than the rights of the murderer because society assumes a moral superiority over him (rightly or wrongly).

The reason for this is that, as Damar points out, society tries to perpetuate itself. People band together in a society because it gives them certain benefits: it means they have a police force and a reliable way of getting food and resources. In exchange, they obey society's laws, giving up the total freedom which they would experience if they were totally outside society. The murderer, by killing somebody, has disobeyed a societal law which exists in the first place because killing people is disruptive to society; it undermines the benefits which society gives. The murderer is executed partly to appease people, but mostly because it is the most effective way of removing him from society for good and stabilising the situation.

And yes, if I met somebody in the wilderness I wouldn't want to kill them. But this is because the two of us might form a very small society. Yes this person might have resources I can use, but by banding together with them (or at least not being overly hostile) we could provide each other with shared resources (which might improve both our lots), protection (we could sleep in shifts, one of us keeping watch) and companionship. And if I tried to kill them and failed, that would be disastrous. But if such a friendship was impossible - if they were totally hostile and exploited me for my resources - then killing would be an excellent option. It would remove a hostile and unco-operative influence and would strengthen my own position.

I do believe that human society would do well to found itself on a principle of "be nice to others and they'll be nice back", but it doesn't follow that killing is taboo. Killing is simply another human act. Yes it has permanent consequences and should never be taken lightly, but the idea that it must never happen is neither sensible nor borne out by almost any period in human history.

[Delling]

Killing is not killmurdering in all instances.

I fixed it.

I have killed millions... of cancer and rat cells. That one week when I didn't kill my cells and left and then came back... after that, I may have killed billions (depending on when I last split them: 128-512 * N, N being the population I split them down to... N could easily have been 100's of thousands). These things happen.

I do believe that human society would do well to found itself on a principle of "be nice to others and they'll be nice back", but it doesn't follow that killing is taboo. Killing is simply another human act. Yes it has permanent consequences and should never be taken lightly, but the idea that it must never happen is neither sensible nor borne out by almost any period in human history.

What you're describing is punishment being a social construct.  I would agree with that.  The underlying morality, though, would not be. 

...

Therefore not all morality is simply created by society, is my ultimate point, using murder as an example.

I'm not sure I agree with you. In part because nebulously defined, immaterial higher standards make a great license for those willing to abuse the interpretation of those "standards". Come back when you have a nice list, neatly delineated on some stone tablets.

What I would be willing to agree to is that there are things which have absolute meaning and that you can build systems of value and worth around them. I don't see that the things that go along with most moralities such as shame economics, power dynamics, etc., necessarily follow from that. Of course, that would be because the meanings and reactions to them upon which I've built my morality don't reflect meanings and reactions upon which those moralities are built (I am a theist, for instance. So, I expect that there is a God and that His existence has meaning, that is it somehow impacts and shapes the world. My morality will be intrinsically different from the morality of an atheist. We may agree that beauty is meaningful and have a positive response to it--if so we are both aesthetes. He may feel that pleasure is meaningful, more meaningful than I consider it, perhaps to the extent of elevating the acquisition of pleasure to a goal--then he would be a hedonist while I would not be (I might not be an ascetic, meaning I eschew pleasures as somehow amoral, though nothing in my description thus far has precluded that)).

You only look for excuses when you need to get around something.  If morality is simply a social construct, there's nothing to get around.  You get yours by any means necessary, end of story. 

You still have to get around society. You ≠ Society. If (and I'm not saying it is) morality is a social construct, then morality is a mandate of the masses. You still have to subvert the masses' ire if you want to do something amoral.

People do this on a regular basis: by having lots of money, economic or political power, or simply disagreeing with the moral majority consistently and vociferously. In the end though, I imagine most people are just busily constructing their own individual moralities.

Actually, morality/moralism and language have a lot in common in that you can have moralistic idiolects and we can compare those to moralistic dialects and see whether or not they are "mutually intelligible" (reach some minimum level of consensus).

We'd live in a world of sociopaths (at least when dealing with people outside your community.)  Since that's something we don't see as a general rule, it follows that there is a higher morality that society has built itself around and branched its laws from (some of which may be social constructs, but the core would not be).

I don't regularly encounter people who call a cat a fish. Ergo, there is a higher standard that dictates a cat is not a fish.

There isn't a higher, abstract thing that makes a cat not a fish. There's just centuries' worth of social consensus that one thing is a cat and the other is a fish and that the two are not the same.

The other factor is that in the modern world, the internet has more or less provided us with a global community and a history of expansion and colonization has more or less used up the global landmass... there isn't a frontier for us to go encounter unknown or unheard of people in unless they are "unheard of" in the sense of simple ignorance of their existence. We don't deal with people we don't know as sociopaths because we feel we know everyone and we know there are global and local legal, social, moral authorities (whether or not we agree with each of those levels of the local authority individually, distributively, or completely and implicitly is a hazier issue), and in some cases, we may even find that the local authority is more inclined to protect the locals than the outsiders so it wouldn't exactly do us much good to act up.

Intriguingly, back in the days when we used to encounter aboriginal tribes, we did sometimes encounter tribes that dealt with outsiders on the basis that "you are an outsider; ergo you do not count and we can do as we please with you... yum" (yum added for comedic effect).

[I set out to make a short simple tongue-firmly-wedged-in-cheek response... and this happens ]

[Damar]

We'd live in a world of sociopaths (at least when dealing with people outside your community.)  Since that's something we don't see as a general rule, it follows that there is a higher morality that society has built itself around and branched its laws from (some of which may be social constructs, but the core would not be).

I don't regularly encounter people who call a cat a fish. Ergo, there is a higher standard that dictates a cat is not a fish.

There isn't a higher, abstract thing that makes a cat not a fish. There's just centuries' worth of social consensus that one thing is a cat and the other is a fish and that the two are not the same.

I would argue there is a higher thing that makes a cat not a fish, namely it's very being.  A fish is a thing that swims and is delicious.  A cat is a thing that purrs, coughs up hairballs, and is probably delicious but not in a culturally appropriate way.  You can call them whatever you want, but whether you call the thing that swims a fish, cat, or human, it's still that thing that swims.  Consensus comes about because of this thing's existence and underlying identity.  It's identity doesn't come about because society has reached a consensus.

And that's the issue I have with society defining morality in totality.  It makes morality arbitrary depending on the culture and the consensus and we just plain don't see that.  I would argue that this is evidence of a higher morality, something that in our core of being, regardless of our society, we recognize certain things as morally correct and incorrect.  At its core, since I'm all out of stone tablets to decree absolute law, it seems that we are wired to see each person as an individual who deserves their own life, apart from the control of others.  Therefore things like murder, rape, theft, slavery, and so on transcend societal laws and are part of a greater morality.  You just straight up don't do those things.  Societies have tried to justify them in the past, but like I said, the fact that you (you meaning "you all" in the societal sense, report me to the English language thread if you must) justify means that there is something you're justifying against.  Again, evidence of a higher morality, of inalienable human rights.

And yes, if I met somebody in the wilderness I wouldn't want to kill them. But this is because the two of us might form a very small society. Yes this person might have resources I can use, but by banding together with them (or at least not being overly hostile) we could provide each other with shared resources (which might improve both our lots), protection (we could sleep in shifts, one of us keeping watch) and companionship. And if I tried to kill them and failed, that would be disastrous. But if such a friendship was impossible - if they were totally hostile and exploited me for my resources - then killing would be an excellent option. It would remove a hostile and unco-operative influence and would strengthen my own position.

And if you have nothing to do with that other person, nothing to tie you down to them, then what?  Would it be morally appropriate to raid that person's community and take their stuff?  They don't need to watch your back, you have your own community for that.  If morality is simply created by society alone and what perpetuates the society, then there should be nothing morally wrong about raiding some city, killing and pillaging, and bringing the resources back to your community.  In fact, scratch it not being morally wrong, societal morality would demand you do such things, for the good of the community.  Like I said in my last post, though, we don't see that.  We don't live in a world of sociopaths.  That points to an underlying morality.  Even this person you don't know and who has things you need deserves to live his life and keep what belongs to him.  He has rights and you abide by them.

[snabbott]

I've been following this thread, but I hadn't had the time to comment until now.

If you think about it, atheism is a kind of faith, too - faith in the nonexistence of God. The existence of God can no more be disproved than it can be proved (regardless of what the philosophers might say). In my worldview, the idea of God not existing doesn't make sense. With my  scientific background, I can relate a bit more easily to agnostics, who believe that we can't know whether God exists or not. (Greek: ἀ- a-, without + γνῶσις gnōsis, knowledge)

As a Christian, I believe that there is an absolute morality, defined by God, and communicated in the Bible. (Not a popular belief, I know.) Of course, interpreting that morality can be very difficult. People often point to the example of the command not to kill as an inconsistency, but I believe that there are significant differences among murder, accidental killing, war, and capital punishment.

Anyway... that's my $0.02.

[darthkiwi]

At its core, since I'm all out of stone tablets to decree absolute law, it seems that we are wired to see each person as an individual who deserves their own life, apart from the control of others.  Therefore things like murder, rape, theft, slavery, and so on transcend societal laws and are part of a greater morality.

Almost all human societies have practiced slavery. Almost all societies have feudal hierarchies, allowing people to dominate one another. Human sacrifice was common to most of central and south America, and various forms of execution (whether the removal of a scapegoat or the execution of heretics or political revolutionaries) was THE NORM in Europe until capital punishment was abolished less than 100 years ago, which is an overwhelmingly long stretch of time for you to say that we have a universal morality which says killing is wrong. Women were exploited and seen as objects (or at least second-class citizens) in the majority of societies until about 1918. The persecution of blacks only stopped (sort of) 50 years ago. There are still people out there committing genocide in Africa, causing mass starvation, and perpetuating slavery either in the form of debt slavery (where children must work for the rest of their lives for no pay to pay off the debts of their parents) or in the form of human trafficking (where immigrants, often to the UK, are lured here under false promises and then imprisoned in somebody's house and made to work for no pay).

Humans do sometimes show compassion, but to argue that that is the norm as the result of some in-built feeling of justice is to ignore the vast majority of human history, wherein we enslaved, murdered, captured, conquered and raped everything we could (and still are doing in some areas).

And yes, there are a few ennobling philosophers who believed that humanity was essentially noble and put forward a more libertarian view of humanity. Those people who believed that blacks were equal to whites in the 19th century, for example. But to say that that was the norm, or that that message somehow took root in people's minds because it was felt to be correct? No! That's simply untrue! Blacks were still treated as subhuman well into the second half of the 20th century.

We're now in a cultural position to look back on all that and say "Ah, yes, those were bad times but now we're enlightened! Now we can see that humanity is essentially good." Which is nonsense. You can't use the last 50 years of relative goodwill to ignore about 10,000 years of wanton domination. Yes, I agree that the system of morals we have right now is actually pretty good, in that it allows people to get along and not lessen others' happiness too much. But that does not mean there's anything more inherently "true" in this morality than any other.

[Damar]

Almost all human societies have practiced slavery. Almost all societies have feudal hierarchies, allowing people to dominate one another. Human sacrifice was common to most of central and south America, and various forms of execution (whether the removal of a scapegoat or the execution of heretics or political revolutionaries) was THE NORM in Europe until capital punishment was abolished less than 100 years ago, which is an overwhelmingly long stretch of time for you to say that we have a universal morality which says killing is wrong. Women were exploited and seen as objects (or at least second-class citizens) in the majority of societies until about 1918. The persecution of blacks only stopped (sort of) 50 years ago. There are still people out there committing genocide in Africa, causing mass starvation, and perpetuating slavery either in the form of debt slavery (where children must work for the rest of their lives for no pay to pay off the debts of their parents) or in the form of human trafficking (where immigrants, often to the UK, are lured here under false promises and then imprisoned in somebody's house and made to work for no pay).

Humans do sometimes show compassion, but to argue that that is the norm as the result of some in-built feeling of justice is to ignore the vast majority of human history, wherein we enslaved, murdered, captured, conquered and raped everything we could (and still are doing in some areas).

And yes, there are a few ennobling philosophers who believed that humanity was essentially noble and put forward a more libertarian view of humanity. Those people who believed that blacks were equal to whites in the 19th century, for example. But to say that that was the norm, or that that message somehow took root in people's minds because it was felt to be correct? No! That's simply untrue! Blacks were still treated as subhuman well into the second half of the 20th century.

We're now in a cultural position to look back on all that and say "Ah, yes, those were bad times but now we're enlightened! Now we can see that humanity is essentially good." Which is nonsense. You can't use the last 50 years of relative goodwill to ignore about 10,000 years of wanton domination. Yes, I agree that the system of morals we have right now is actually pretty good, in that it allows people to get along and not lessen others' happiness too much. But that does not mean there's anything more inherently "true" in this morality than any other.

I think you're mistaking my saying that there is a universal morality for me saying that people are basically good, which I'm definitely not.  Your examples are all valid, but that all gets back to justification people make that I was talking about earlier.  Yes, all those things happened, but there was a societal justification for all of it.  The concept of human slavery, for example, was considered horrific.  People justified having African slaves, because in their mind, they weren't people.  Therefore it wasn't slavery.  It was owning property.  It was no different than owning cattle.  Women have been exploited and treated like second-class citizens.  And this was justified as actually believing that they are second-class citizens, that women are like children and just can't handle important things, lest their fragile little minds implode with thoughts that don't center around cooking and cleaning.  Human sacrifices have existed but they were either justified by using outsiders who were seen as unimportant and less than, or the sacrifice utilized insiders and was seen as an honor.  In each of these cases, a moral wrong was justified away as being in the victim's best interest.

My point is that you don't justify things unless you're doing something fundamentally wrong.  If the justification of, "they're not really people and this is actually good for them," didn't exist, then everything you've given as an example would have been seen as actually horrific, even in the times they existed.  If there was no deeper morality, then the perpetrators would have no need to justify or explain their actions.  They'd just do it and be applauded for doing so.

But even if you don't buy that, then let's look at it this way.  If morality is 100% a social construct, then there is no absolute morality.  We look back and see slavery as wrong because, as you put it, we're in a cultural position to do so.  So slavery is morally wrong now, according to our society.  Does that mean it wasn't actually wrong before?  In fact, with slavery, you have a perfect example of a society perpetuating itself at the expense of another.  America went to another community, one that it didn't have any vested interest in, and kidnapped its people as a workforce in order to drive it's own economy.  Was that morally appropriate?  If morality is just a construct of society, then we're forced to conclude that, yes, it was.  America did what it needed to in order to thrive.  And if morality is entirely a social construct, then not only was it moral for people to sell other humans into slavery, but it's not our place to condemn that now that slavery is no longer considered moral in society.  It was moral at the time and we should recognize that.  And that extends to slavery that occurs in other cultures now.  They're just doing what's morally right for them.  Just because it's not right for us doesn't mean that it's not right for them.  And what if culture changes again and suddenly it's ok to oppress certain minorities again?  Is that moral?  Can morality just change like that and then force us to follow suit?  Is it moral that women make less than men in the workplace?  If morals are contingent on society, and society has made that distinction, then it's ok.  We go into a realm of pure moral relativity.

And that's why I argue that there has to be a higher morality.  Something that transcends all cultures and people.  Something that says, "This is wrong," no matter what the context or surrounding.  Something that says that people have basic rights that isn't contingent on whether a society believes that or not.  And please understand, I'm not using the concept of a higher morality to say that people are completely good moral beings or that terrible things don't happen, or that there's not a segment of people in all societies and cultures who break that morality whenever they want.  But none of those facts would change the fact that the morality is there.  And I argue that we can see evidence that it is there by the fact that we are horrified about these evils from the past, and the fact that even in the past, people justified those evils by saying, "this is why morality doesn't apply in this situation."

[Lambonius]

Gotta love those threads in which every post is a wall of text.  Oy.

[Delling]

Damar, my problem with your argument is that you keep saying a "higher morality", yet you offer no standard for that morality. You cannot codify or describe it in absolute terms. I assume this because you have not done so thus far.

Argue about this evil or this good or this or that morality or this or that justification all you want, but until you can codify this "higher morality", I can in no way see how it is different from your creating your own means to justify any action as moral: "Well, clearly, X is right under the 'higher morality'".

I would argue there is a higher thing that makes a cat not a fish, namely it's very being.  A fish is a thing that swims and is delicious.  A cat is a thing that purrs, coughs up hairballs, and is probably delicious but not in a culturally appropriate way.  You can call them whatever you want, but whether you call the thing that swims a fish, cat, or human, it's still that thing that swims.  Consensus comes about because of this thing's existence and underlying identity.  It's identity doesn't come about because society has reached a consensus.

No. You completely miss the point. What you describe is the antithesis of the point. The point is that yes, a cat is not a fish, but when I use the syllogism "I do not regularly encounter X; therefore some higher reason exists why X is not so" as you did regarding sociopathic behavior and higher morality, I have engaged in a compound fallacy.

Let's try another-- "I do not regularly encounter charitable people (people are not in general helpful unless asked and even then there is no guarantee and they aren't exactly falling over each other to give money at any of the charity boxes in town and what's more they are unlikely to step in to help someone they see in trouble on the street unless they know someone involved), ergo the higher morality must preclude charity." You can come back at this with "well, they justify their own bad behavior", but you won't have assailed or even come close to my point which is that the structure of the argument in question is inherently flawed.

Societies have tried to justify them in the past, but like I said, the fact that you (you meaning "you all" in the societal sense, report me to the English language thread if you must) justify means that there is something you're justifying against.  Again, evidence of a higher morality, of inalienable human rights.

This argument shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the semantics of the term "justify": it is not necessary for every single justification to be "against" something else. It is entirely possible to justify something in its own right against nothing else. There is no appellative justification for the physical laws that govern the universe: they are self-justifying by the very fact that they are.

If morality is simply created by society alone and what perpetuates the society, then there should be nothing morally wrong about raiding some city, killing and pillaging, and bringing the resources back to your community.  In fact, scratch it not being morally wrong, societal morality would demand you do such things, for the good of the community.

No. A social morality based on the propagation and betterment of a single society would realize that it is not in the best interests of any given society to be in a state of constant war with its neighbors and any new cultures it may encounter.

My point is that you don't justify things unless you're doing something fundamentally wrong.  If the justification of, "they're not really people and this is actually good for them," didn't exist, then everything you've given as an example would have been seen as actually horrific, even in the times they existed.  If there was no deeper morality, then the perpetrators would have no need to justify or explain their actions.  They'd just do it and be applauded for doing so.

Except that in terms of society, the fact that there wasn't societal moral consensus on the point of slavery in the global community of the 19th century is why it doesn't exist today. One moral consciousness got together and overpowered another moral consciousness and got rid of something it thought was morally wrong. In point of fact, the perpetrators were constantly having to defend their way of life from the other society that thought it was morally wrong, not from some arbitrary, voiceless higher moral authority.

[Blackthorne]

Yeah, you can write/talk all you want about morality until your fingers are numb and you're blue in the face, but what matters is your actions.


Bt

[Fierce Deity]

Yeah, you can write/talk all you want about morality until your fingers are numb and you're blue in the face, but what matters is your actions.


Bt

Thank you. 

[snabbott]

I must say, I'm really pleased at how civil this discussion has been!