Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Mrs. Don-o

Just wondering where the list of Moral Absolutes might be found ?

... I'm still waiting ...


45 posted on 10/12/2006 9:06:19 PM PDT by RS ("I took the drugs because I liked them and I found excuses to take them, so I'm not weaseling.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies ]


To: RS

you couldnt understand, it's the casting pearls to swine thing.


47 posted on 10/12/2006 9:17:51 PM PDT by Texas4ever (Anything off the dollar menu :))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies ]

To: RS
Just wondering where the list of Moral Absolutes might be found ? ... I'm still waiting ...

Well, I gave you my answer and a little discussion, but that's evidently not what you're after. Are you looking perhaps for a more political answer?

You might want to ask the people who run the Moral Absolutes ping list, wagglebee and little jeremiah.

52 posted on 10/13/2006 9:25:49 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies ]

To: RS; wagglebee; little jeremiah
One interesting angle on Moral Absolutes might be of interest to you: the paramount value of human life. In law, there is a concept called "legal necessity" which sets aside almost any other law, if the object is to preserve a life.

Here's a practical example. Say you are passing by a deserted stretch of seashore and you see somebody apparently thrashing about and in danger of drowning in the sea. You yourself are no very adequate swimmer. but you do see a rowboat with a coil of rope and a pair of oars in a nearby boathouse. You also see that the beach and the boathouse are clearly posted "Private Property: No Trespassing."

So what do you do? You go on the property, break into the boathouse, take the raft and launch it into the water, paddle rapidly over to the drowning person. The person is in a panic and struggling wildly, ao you throw a lasso around him and restrain his flailing arms, and then drag him into the boat and haul him back to the shore.

You've technically committed:
*trespassing,
*breaking and entering,
* burglary,
*assault and battery, and
*kidnapping (?)

but I doubt there's a policeman anywhere who would arrest you for it, a jury that would convict you, or a judge that would sentence you, due to the absolute value of human life.

It is not clear that doing all of the above would be obligatory. In other words, if you chose to do otherwise --- say you chose to run to a residential area half a mile from the drowning person, in hopes that you could find a phone and dial 9-1-1, knowing that it might be too late --- you would not have violated a moral absolute (though people might well think you were stupid.) The point here is only that other moral values can be set aside to uphold the one paramount value of life itself.

The uniqueness of this value can be seen even more clearly in the negative form: there is an absolute moral prohibition against directly and deliberately killing a non-aggressor, i.e., an innocent human life.

53 posted on 10/13/2006 11:05:14 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson