Originally posted by FearlessLeader2:
Legal slavery is no less evil than illegal slavery. If they pass a law that says child molestation is legal, I will still view it as evil. If society tells me that euthanasia of the elderly is a good and wonderful thing, I'll find a new society. Relativism is wrong.
What's your big hangup with the law? THere's nothing good nor evil about laws. No thinking MR will point at a law and say, "See, there's proof that I'm right". In fact the whole point is that
we don't know what is absolutely right or wrong and so we improvise. Laws are improvisations, open to change and debate. They're just there to protect us from each other because human beings are
naturally relativist and thus tend to disagree on exactly what you would tell us is so obvious. If we didn't, then surely the need for this kind of discussion--indeed the need for laws themselves--would never arise. We would all just be born knowing good from evil and there wouldn't be any debate.
Now since you brought the word up, I'll use it as an example: I personally believe that euthanasia on demand should be legal. I believe that there's nothing inherently evil about my choosing to end my own life. It's mine. In fact I would be severely peeved off to find that I couldn't order a lethal dose of morphine if I, say, knew I was going to waste away and die from a disease anyway. But morally it wouldn't stop me for a second from walking in front of a bus instead.
Indeed I would do whatever it took to break the particular laws that prevented me from doing it, with no moral qualms whatsoever (though with a very sober regard to the consequences of my actions, which has nothing at all to do with right and wrong). But I wouldn't view either my actions or the laws themselves as 'evil' in an absolute sense. And I don't think any MR worth their position would either.
They're just laws. Feel free to break them if you're prepared to face the consequences--or if you're being motivated by a 'greater truth'. Either is fine by me. Who knows, maybe in the final reckoning you'll be right. But the point is: Down here, right now,
we just don't know.
One can *pretend* that laws are based on some greater absolute truth, but it's not necessary. Indeed it's often counterproductive to believe this, as society will often evolve
right past certain laws but won't be able to adjust them properly because of lingering appeals to tradition motivated mainly by absolutist positions.
And just to bring this thread back to the general realm of its stated topic, I'll cite marriage laws and quaint virginity requirements as examples of outdated notions of 'good' and 'evil'. If you think you're avoiding hell by sticking to them, by all means continue. I'll continue to take my chances as responsibly as possible, and based on my own constantly-evolving ethical framework.
