A question for moral absolutists: impossible sins

[The Last Conformist]

If they have no free will where murder is concerned, then they cannot murder.

That was supposed to be the starting point. Now, given that they cannot murder, is murder still wrong for them, and if so, how does that make sense?

I'm going to guess you'll answer along the lines of Fifty and others, that it's a platonic truth analoguous to mathematical truths about uninstantiated numbers et sim. Right? As I said in the reply to Fifty, I feel there's something fishy about this analogy, but I can't yet put my finger exactly on why, so perhaps the problem is with me.

(I might, of course, cut the analogy at the roots by denying mathematical platonism, but I won't go there in this thread, and at any rate it would absurd to deny mathematical platonism because it can be used to support some argument about morality.)

I dunno. I guess in general such a thing could be possible, although I don't see your reasoning behind pointing it out.

It needed pointing out because your first post implied that moral relativism does mean that morality is man-made.

 

[Elrohir]

That was supposed to be the starting point. Now, given that they cannot murder, is murder still wrong for them, and if so, how does that make sense?

Uhh....you're doing this wrong. There's a difference between beings who are incapable of murder because of physical limitations (IE, it's not physically possible to kill) and those who are incapable of murder because of moral or deterministic limitations.

I'm going to guess you'll answer along the lines of Fifty and others, that it's a platonic truth analoguous to mathematical truths about uninstantiated numbers et sim. Right? As I said in the reply to Fifty, I feel there's something fishy about this analogy, but I can't yet put my finger exactly on why, so perhaps the problem is with me.

Something like that, yes.

(I might, of course, cut the analogy at the roots by denying mathematical platonism, but I won't go there in this thread, and at any rate it would absurd to deny mathematical platonism because it can be used to support some argument about morality.)

Yes, it would be.

It needed pointing out because your first post implied that moral relativism does mean that morality is man-made.

Fine.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Uhh....you're doing this wrong. There's a difference between beings who are incapable of murder because of physical limitations (IE, it's not physically possible to kill) and those who are incapable of murder because of moral or deterministic limitations.

I don't have direct access to your mind to know exactly which distinctions you find relevant. The example of the OP isn't important in itself, it's meant to illustrate what I mean by an "impossible sin". Clearly it didn't work too well with you.

 

[scy12]

I don't know who said it first. But it is still immoral if the only thing that has changed is that in that universe they can't do that immoral action. It is only irrelevant to mention it. Like the " Can God make a stone so heavy that even he can't lift it" thing.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Also, I think VRWC's answer has more philosophical meat to it then it looks at first pass. If a counterfactual of the form "if person P committed action y, then P would be acting wrongly" is true, then we can meaningful make moral prescriptions about y.

Seconded. Also - since Last Conformist seems hesitant to accept your counterfactual as the right analysis - we can ask what else "murder is wrong" might mean, if it is NOT implied by "if a person committed murder, they would be acting wrongly". We can then ask why this other meaning is something moral objectivists should be concerned about.

 

[cubsfan6506]

It's impossible for me to cause a massive flood killing humanity, but it's still wrong.

 

[gangleri2001]

In that world (p) wouldn't exist.

 

[classical_hero]

No, this isn't about the Kama Sutra, you gutterminded freak.


Suppose, for the sake of the argument that I claim

(p) Murder is wrong

and that (p) is true.

Now, consider a hypothetical world were living creatures cannot kill or be killed. Is (p) still true in this world? Presumably, a moral absolutist has to say that, yes, it still is, but I have a hard time seeing how that makes any sense. How is it meaningful to say that it's wrong to do what can't be done?

It seems to me that the truth of (p), if true it be, is contingent on us being creatures capable of killing or being killed. But if we admit that the truth of a moral claim is contingent on the kind of being saying it, we've accepted moral relativism.



I suppose there is a standard answer to this, but I've not heard it. Enlighten me.

If people canot kill and be killed then sin would have to be removed from that world in the first plac. The bible is clear that death is the punishment of sin. So on such world they would not know what evil is and thus there is no need do define evil and only good wil happen, so there is no need to even consider what murder and death is, if you do not know what it is, so how can you define something that you know nothing about? So murder does not exist so we do not know if it is either right or wrong, but just some abstract thing that we have no knowledge of.

 

[classical_hero]

Hmm, I betcha that most moral absolutites (absoluters? absolutists?) have a list of things that they believe to be immoral - yet, it would be impossible for them to do these things.

Well that is the whole point of moral absolutes is that to show that no one is perfect and thus they are utterly hopeless. This means that they need someone who is perfect to be in place of them so that they can be perfected as a result of his actions.

 

[warpus]

Well that is the whole point of moral absolutes is that to show that no one is perfect and thus they are utterly hopeless. This means that they need someone who is perfect to be in place of them so that they can be perfected as a result of his actions.

You are talking about a subset of moral absolutists... actually, it sounds like you're really talking about Christians

 

[classical_hero]

You are talking about a subset of moral absolutists... actually, it sounds like you're really talking about Christians

Well I can only come from the background that I have and I am very much a Christian and that is exactly what most moral absolutists are, Christian. So it would be best to hear from that position.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Seconded. Also - since Last Conformist seems hesitant to accept your counterfactual as the right analysis - we can ask what else "murder is wrong" might mean, if it is NOT implied by "if a person committed murder, they would be acting wrongly".

I don't have a good answer to that. Count y'all has having convinced me there is probably no logical problem to moral absolutism posed by my hypothetical.

 

[The Last Conformist]

The bible is clear that death is the punishment of sin.

I don't think the Bible is clear on anything of the sort (see eg. Gen. 3:22), but in any case I'm not about to recognize it as an authority on moral philosphy. If you want to argue with me you'll have to start from something we agree on.

 

[Alexander GR]

A conceivable,yet impossible action may meet an equally conceivable,yet hypothetical, negation of its morality.An inconceivable action,from its own nature, cannot be examined in any way.