Texas Executes 300th Inmate

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by obiwan18
korn469:

You've hit the nail on the problems with Cultural Relativism.


Imran: So if a society likes to eat babies, eating babies must be moral for that society?

Don't distract him from the issue at hand. We're talking about the morality of retribution. And I wanna know how, since he's stated on several occasions before that laws=morality, something illegal can still be moral.

[Imran Siddiqui]

if laws are the embodiment of a society's morality, it could possibly be moral to commit such an act, which is clearly illegal. You yourself established here that it is our society about which you are talking.

Society composes of individuals. Individuals can disagree with laws, but it doesn't change the fact that society has declared a morality for the entire society.

And why do you assume I was speaking about our society? There are plenty of societies where that act is illegal but a significant minority consider it to be immoral.

I think the problem here is that if you say hey it was/is moral in society x, that somebody could easily present an argument that it wasn't moral in society y.

And what does this prove? It was moral in x, but not in y. So?

Imran: So if a society likes to eat babies, eating babies must be moral for that society?

Yep.

[GePap]

Such a society would not last very long, and hence that one choice is greatly selected against.

[Imran Siddiqui]

And I wanna know how, since he's stated on several occasions before that laws=morality, something illegal can still be moral.

Yes... like I said society's morality is not the same individual's morality. Laws cannot equal every individual's morality.

I may have misspoke when I said that killing an SO is legal, but not moral. I should have inserted 'may' twice into the text. I didn't mean to imply absolutes there. It should have been: may be legal, but may not be moral. It is the difference between societal morality (laws) and individual morality (morals).

Such a society would not last very long

Yep.

[korn469]

Imran

I forgot but didn't you say you were studying law?

also I too would like to know if you think retribution outside of the authority of the state is moral

[Imran Siddiqui]

I forgot but didn't you say you were studying law?

Yes, that's how I knew the 'Four Theories of Punishment' .

also I too would like to know if you think retribution outside of the authority of the state is moral

To individuals, yes. Personally, I think it can be. A man killing someone that raped his daughter I believe is a moral act.

To societies, no! Vigilantism is against societal morality, no matter what.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

if laws are the embodiment of a society's morality, it could possibly be moral to commit such an act, which is clearly illegal. You yourself established here that it is our society about which you are talking.

Society composes of individuals. Individuals can disagree with laws, but it doesn't change the fact that society has declared a morality for the entire society.

But those individual moralities don't matter, according to you. You said yourself in the other thread that only the morality of society as a whole matters in questions of determining what is right and wrong.

At any rate, asserting this makes your saying it is moral patently irrelevant. If it isn't moral to you personally, and isn't moral to society, but it may be moral so some individuals who are at odds with society, what the hell does that matter in the context of an argument? I'm sure some people think it is moral to press their kids' fingers to hot stoves as punishment. But if you don't think it's moral, and society doesn't think it's moral, why bother bringing it up in a debate wherein someone is trying to get your moral perspective?

That's like if someone asked me if it were moral for the Nazis to massacre the Jews, I answered yes based on the fact that some Nazis did in fact think it was moral.

And why do you assume I was speaking about our society? There are plenty of societies where that act is illegal but a significant minority consider it to be immoral.

Again, according to you, that minority's morality doesn't matter. Regardless, if you don't feel that way, and most people don't feel that way, why do you bother asserting it in an argument about whether it is right or wrong? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

[Imran Siddiqui]

But those individual moralities don't matter, according to you.

Those individual moralities don't matter in determining what is right in wrong for SOCIETAL MORALITY (except in democratic states when a bunch of them equal 50%+1). I never said that individual morality does not absolutely matter. It matters to the individual, of course. I haven't said otherwise.

If it isn't moral to you personally, and isn't moral to society, but it may be moral so some individuals who are at odds with society, what the hell does that matter in the context of an argument?

Because retribution is something that can be done by society OR individuals. Think about it, when someone kills your kid, you can easily get up and kill him. It is very much harder, if not impossible, to incapaciate, deter, or rehabilitate someone by yourself, without society.

The morality of individuals who do not matter to society's morality is important in this context, because in retribution an individual's morality can be just as strong as society's morality in achieving the desired end.

[Ben Kenobi]

Imran:

Is the law of a society dynamic or static?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Is the law of a society dynamic or static?

Dynamic... just as social morality is (which can change with another generation where a majority of them believes in a different morality).

[korn469]

Imran

if a person does something that is individually moral, should society has a right to punish them if their action is illegal?

how about if a person does something that violates their individual code morality yet it is legal, is justice being ignored?

[Imran Siddiqui]

if a person does something that is individually moral, should society has a right to punish them if their action is illegal?

Yes, because it violates social morality. Individual morality doesn't matter to anyone other than the person, unless he's got enough people to make it the societal morality.

how about if a person does something that violates their individual code morality yet it is legal, is justice being ignored?

Nope.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

If it isn't moral to you personally, and isn't moral to society, but it may be moral so some individuals who are at odds with society, what the hell does that matter in the context of an argument?

Because retribution is something that can be done by society OR individuals. Think about it, when someone kills your kid, you can easily get up and kill him. It is very much harder, if not impossible, to incapaciate, deter, or rehabilitate someone by yourself, without society.

The morality of individuals who do not matter to society's morality is important in this context, because in retribution an individual's morality can be just as strong as society's morality in achieving the desired end.

This makes no sense to stipulate in an argument about what is right or wrong. UR asked you if it was moral to do such a thing, and you said yes. There are only two reasons I can think of to answer like that: 1) That is how you personally feel, or 2) that is how society feels.

NEITHER of those is apparently true, so answering like that is absurd. BY this reasoning, one could answer ANY moral question with a "Yes, that is moral" because someone somewhere once thought it was moral to do such a thing.

Regardless, individual morality doesn't have anything to do with stipulating whether or not retribution is right or wrong in an absolute (by societal standards) sense. Arguing it is moral to an individual to kill someone else's innocent loved one is meaningless in the context of an argument about whether or not it is moral for a society to partake in retribution, which is what this argument was about.

Part of me wonders why you even bother taking part in moral arguments in the first place, considering you always throw out morally relativistic nonsense that does nothing but throw a debate into chaos.

[korn469]

Imran,

since society's morality as codified by laws is the only thing we should concern ourselves with then could you please clarify yourself on this statement some

The morality of individuals who do not matter to society's morality is important in this context, because in retribution an individual's morality can be just as strong as society's morality in achieving the desired end.

[Imran Siddiqui]

individual morality doesn't have anything to do with stipulating whether or not retribution is right or wrong in an absolute (by societal standards) sense. Arguing it is moral to an individual to kill someone else's innocent loved one is meaningless in the context of an argument about whether or not it is moral for a society to partake in retribution, which is what this argument was about.

What can I say? I'm very good at threadjacking *shrug*.

Though I thought the argument was whether retribution was right at all, whether done societally or individually. Ramo believes that all retribution is wrong, no matter who it is done by.