re societal basis for morality in apr cnsvax uwec edu nyeda cnsvax uwec edu david nye writes reply to cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb if morals come from what is societally accepted why follow that what right do we have to expect others to follow our notion of societally mandated morality pardon the extremism but couldn t i murder your brother and say that i was exercising my rights as i saw them was doing what felt good didn t want anyone forcing their morality on me or i don t follow your morality i believe that morality is subjective each person is entitled to his own moral attitudes mine are not a priori more correct than someone elses this does not mean however that i must judge another on the basis of his rather than my moral standards while he is entitled to believe what his own moral sense tells him the rest of society is entitled to pass laws spelling out punishments for behavior that is offensive to the majority why how might makes right how can they force their morality on me why can t i do what i want who are they to decide what if i disagree most criminals do not see their behavior as moral the may realize that it is immoral and not care they are thus not following their own moral system but being immoral good point but it is being immoral in our opinion we don t let them choose we make the decision that their actions are wrong for them for someone to lay claim to an alternative moral system he must be sincere in his belief in it and it must be internally consistent some sociopaths lack an innate moral sense i admit to lean toward the idea of an innate moral sense but have little basis for it as of yet how far can such a concept be extended and thus may be incapable of behaving morally while someone like hitler may have believed that his actions were moral we may judge him immoral by our standards do you mean that we could say it would be wrong for us to do such a thing but not him after all he was behaving morally in his own eyes and doing what he chose on what basis do we condemn other societies besides here s the buzz words on the idea that there are some actions wrong for all humans in all societies holding that morality is subjective does not mean that we must excuse the murderer why not do we have to be objective suddenly david nye nyeda cnsvax uwec edu midelfort clinic eau claire wi this is patently absurd but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities bertrand russell mac michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu nobody can explain everything to anybody g k chesterton
