So far no society and no morality have yielded a perfect world...so people experiment. Sometimes the new is better than the old, sometimes it isn't.
Please tell me which standard this is and how we may discover it with more specificity than you did above
I can't.
Also, please tell me if the rule against child molesting is, in principle, up for grabs based on "new understanding". And who decides.
In a sense it is since different societies (and the same society during different periods) decide what constitutes child molesting...and they don't always make the same rules.
Obviously, the people who make up the society decide what is right.
I can't. --- liberallarry
I've followed this discussion rather closely. A.J.Armitage's claim in #79 to liberallarry that "If you cannot believe, let alone defend based on your worldview, that some things are simply right and others wrong, for all individuals and cultures, at least stop claiming you can explain morality without the supernatural," brushes past the excellent defense already put forth.
This defense included "personal experience, history, law, and science." Human greed for a better life and human curiosity combined with human capacity to communicate such desires and findings alone account for all morality.
But this overlooked defense was not necessary, as the burden of proof is not with proving a negative. The burden of proof lies with them that propose the positive (existence of a supernatural force). Which of course has not been offered as yet.
I found the "I can't" surprisingly unexpected, as the answer had already been covered quite clearly in general terms. A counter question would have been more productive, than "I can't." The counter question then is: What part of learning from "personal experience, history, law, and science" is there need for "more specificity" so that the answer can be understood?
Admittedly there are those who do not understand the basic building blocks of civilization. Or those who just purposefully choose to not understand.
So far no society and no morality have yielded a perfect world...so people experiment. Sometimes the new is better than the old, sometimes it isn't.
How would you recognize a perfect world if it ever arose? How, indeed, is a term like "perfect world" meaningful? And how can it be meaningful to say the new is better than the old? But you know it is. It might be right or it might be wrong, but it means something. But how could this be if there is no standard transcending culture?
Please tell me which standard this is and how we may discover it with more specificity than you did above
I can't.
But if you're willing to consider anything wrong -- and if you really are a liberal, you must consider a lot of things wrong, some of which really are and some which aren't -- you do have such a standard. You just can't tell where it came from.
In a sense it is since different societies (and the same society during different periods) decide what constitutes child molesting...and they don't always make the same rules.
There is, however, a real biological dividing point: puberty. In legal terms it gets murky because it comes at different times for different people but the law works better if it sets one age in years and applies it to everyone. Some cultures have a practice of marrying off girls who at such a young age they are almost certainly pre-pubecent. Would you say they ought to have a different practice?
Obviously, the people who make up the society decide what is right.
I hope you don't mean this in any serious sense, because if you do you're committed to defending as right a lot of incredibly nasty stuff.