If you are not aware that any harm was done, then you can’t feel guilt over it. So harm does not always result in guilt.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. You are talking about the emotion of guilt, but I'm talking specifically about the state of guilt. If you are aware of committing the harm, only the most calloused won't feel the emotion of guilt. But if you are aware of the harm or not, you are in a state of guilt. I'll try to think of different words that can be used...guilt (emotion) and guilt (state) are just too easily confused.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/guilt

Fair enough. I just assumed that the word "feel" implied emotion.

Now while we're on the subject of definitions, I'd like to get your definitions of "absolute/relative" and "right/wrong" (or if "absolue right/wrong" is an idiom, then a definition for that). I feel like it is slipping all over the place, and I'd like to get it nailed down so I know just exactly what is being debated.

I always try to use the accepted philosophical terms when I discuss these topics.

http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~tlockha/h2700absrel.html


More background material on Moral Absolutism / Relative

Moral Absolutism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_absolutism

Moral Relativism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/right


http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wrong

this is where keep missing the point of absolutes. perception or opinion IS indeed relevant. it is my opinion that when my daughter puts money into the collection plate at her church that she is harmed. she is harmed by what i see as the pastor feeding on her weakness for buying into some so called salvation that will save her from some insane notion that she'll burn in hell for eternity unless she eats up everything he spews. that's how the pastor get's paid so i call the act of his sermon each week nothing short of extortion. she thinks that not only has she not been harmed but that she's done something wonderous for herself.

perception is everything. einstein's theory of relativity can be applied to human perception. every human percieves himself to be in the center of the universe. if i am on the beach in australia and you are on a mountain in colorado what you see around you in no way looks like what i see arround me. even the sky at night will not be percieved the same by each of us. you can percieve what i see by joining me on that beach. now we can agree that the universe around us is the same.

the same thing holds true with a concept such as harm as in my example regarding what i call the weekly ripping off of my daughter. the same can be applied to taxes. i might think it harmful to the ecconomy and thereby the national security of this country if taxes are increased to provide additional entitlements and many economists would agree. among other problems, additional taxation means that employer's share of the income tax burden increases leaving less incentive to hire new workers and may even cause them to lay off workers. there will be just as many people who don't think that will happen, that the increased budget deficit will be offset by increased revenues so no harm will be done to the ecconomy or weaken our national security. which side wins the argument depends on which side can muster the most votes in the legislature. if the taxes are raised and the money appropriated the proof is still not in the pudding. some will say "see? no harm done to our national security and look at all the poor people who have homes now?" the oposition will reply "whadayamean no harm to the national security. we cut military spending by half because of all the laid off worker's income tax that we now don't see." and then "but the military was too big for what we needed you ninny." and on it goes.

i'm convinced that your problem with understanding this concept of relativity lies in your belief system. you've been taught that your morals are absolutely laid down by your god and that this was communicated to the world by jesus. you can't even seem to imagine a universe without god. you ABSOLUTELY think that you know everything about life and the universe.

another thing. don't throw wiki at me. it was written by people just like you and me and is an authority on nothing.

Relativism—the view that there is no universal standard of right and
wrong, good and bad, etc.: what is right and wrong, good and bad, etc.
depends in some way on what individuals or societies believe to be right
and wrong, good and bad, etc.


Of course for societies this is correct and is how it should be.

The closest you get to absolutism is your personal moral code which applies only to you and what you do. You cannot impose your personal absolutism on the world around you without having caused yourself a lot of stress and accomplishing nothing but pissing folks off.

Subjectiveness applies across the board for all things related to humans other than the fact we are going to die which applies to all living things.

what she said.

So far, the arguments for relativism have amounted to "Because!"

I rejected relativism as an irrational before I was a Christian. It is an amoral belief system for cowards. "Yeah, racism is wrong in the US, but it's cool that people are enslaved in Sudan and Zimbabwe. It's right for them."

Show me a rational argument for why slavery is okay in Sudan or Zimbabwe, but it's wrong here. Because they believe it's okay? Then are you saying that the Civil was an immoral war and if the majority of Americans wanted slavery returned, it would be the moral thing to do? Unfortunately, moral relativism breaks down quickly into an immoral system excusing the activities of the majority or a government, out of pure fear of being judgmental.

I am judgmental of anyone to demeans the weak or violates the human rights of anyone, even if they live in another country. You are welcome to your beliefs, but I thank GOD that most people have the common sense to see the obvious flaws to your way of thinking.

So is just about other resource, they aren't written by aliens or robots from the future.

I know what you are saying, but the accuracy of Wikipedia has increased greatly over the past few years. It's now almost as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica.

http://news.cnet.com/Study-Wikipedia-as-accurate-as-Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html

But I'll tell you what. I'll post whatever sources I want and you can decide on a case by case basis if you trust the source, okay? That seems more fair than you dictating to me which sources are acceptable. For someone who claims to be a moral relativist, you are awfully insistent that people see things your way...

The fundamental(pun intended) error in your thinking, spider, lies in the idea that you equivocate between majority agreement and absolute moral.

If that is sufficient grounds to believe in absolute morals, then which time period in history shall we decide is right?



Personally insulting others in a debate is wrong, by the way - by consensus, none-the-less.

All you are stating here is your opinion and no proof of absolute morality or right and wrong. Societally slavery was morally correct in our country as in others in our history. It was right morally until people decided it wasn't anymore. Biblically slavery is morally right, which shows that we change our moral code as time goes on and we grow as humans. Something cannot be wrong unless the moral code says it is.

Let's use gay marriage here as an example. We are in a quandry right now in this country at the morality of this event. Personally I feel there is nothing wrong with it, the laws say different in some places and others say it is.

The moral code of gay marriage is changing right now in this country. It will eventually be morally correct for gays to marry in this country. So it will be right and no longer be wrong for them to marry.

I know that you believe your moral code to be absolute and that is okay for you personally to feel that way and apply it to your life. Nothing wrong with that. You cannot however impose your absolute morality onto others.

Subjectivity applies in all human environments accept death.

That is interesting, because I used the accepted defintion of truth in epistemology, and you changed it to a dictionary's, while calling epistemology fallacious.



I suppose your more well-versed than Wittgenstein on knowledge and truth.

they say it's cool in zimbabwe and the sudan. i don't think it at all cool. i guess i should have used your example here instead of the ones i did use. this you seem to understand and illustrates my point brilliantly.



i have no such rational argument. it's opposed to my rational reasoning. but if you go to the sudan you will find many who will give you THEIR rational argument based on what they PERCIEVE to be THEIR rational reasoning.



my ex often said things like "then you are saying that............." when i've said nothing of the sort. but to comment on your example, the majority of americans in the south did want slavery and went to war to ceceed from america. wars are neither moral nor immoral. wars are fought based on one side believing that something the other side is doing that they PERCEIVE to be immoral.




not so in the least. i consider racial segregation to be immoral. but until the sixties when equal rights laws became prevalent segregation was legal in many southern states and was widely thought by the white citizens of those states to be morally correct. my own father told me that it's right that those people be kept to themselves so they can practice their culturalism without affecting ours. but congress JUDGED that it was not moral. since we could not all decide on segregations morality, they took the decision upon themselves to tell us that basically, "moral, schmoral. now it's illegal"



but in this we think the same. there is no stronger advocate than myself when it comes to countering racism and human rights violations than me. as i said above, like my ex did often you assumed unfairly that because i said one thing i was actually saying something else that does not even begin to communicate my position. she would use such unjust and highly ineffective "debate tactics" thinking that demeaning my positions would somehow raise her own on high. didn't work for her and it sure isn't working here for you and i'll tell you what i often told her. i'm very careful at chosing my words when discussing my view so that i am not missunderstood. so if i don't use words such as YOU used after begining with, "then you are saying that........." it's because those words of YOURS are not worth a **** when it comes to communicating MY point.

I have done no such thing. Majority makes morality is the relativist's domain and they are welcome to it.

The fact that societies and philosophies have constantly reached towards the same moral goals is what I'm talking about. We see this across time and across cultures. When a person is presented as a moral example, we see someone who is humble, peaceful, loving, truthful and non-violent. You may think that's an accident, but that stretches my incredulity to the breaking point.



I have insulted no one. Is lying wrong?

The bottom line is that no one can prove why something ought to be so. Right and wrong are determined by what one thinks ought to be so. Spider's admittance of the fact the he does not know how or why *anything* is wrong is self-refuting his own position.

Opinion asserted as fact without logical support is opinion, but spider claims opinions are irrelevant.

Literally laughing out loud at the absurdity here.

A child can understand where insults were made and know better than to believe in absolute morality. Absolute morals are only believed by cowards.

Your harming me.

Besides all of the gobbley gook, where do the absolute right and wrong ideals come from anyway? A book? They just pop into someone's head from the heavens? They fall on ya when your in the bath?

Where do these absolute right and wrongs come from?

So we do not reiterate already stated information, please do not refer to survival instincts nor genetics as we know that is not the source for right and wrong. Instinctually we have urges that would not be considered morally right so we know that is not true.

Where does absolution come from...lol? I know I used the wrong word here so no need to correct, I was being facetious.

No harming Creative allowed.