Thursday, July 2, 2020

ARE ALL MORAL ABSOLUTES ABSOLUTELY HARMFUL




When I write about God-given moral laws, someone will object, “Moral absolutism leads to some of the worst consequences.” I therefore responded:

·       “You are correct that moral absolutism can be dangerous. It empowers. But this empowerment can be used for good or for evil. In fact the only way to counteract the evil of moral absolutism is for us to be absolute ourselves in our conviction against certain "absolutes."

A good place to start is with your own intuitions of right and wrong. Why do you follow them? Because you know that they are more than just an alarm system, a biochemical reaction. Instead, these intuitions are like a fire alarm system, which alerts us to a genuine reality, a real fire that is raging and which requires our attention.

But why believe that our moral intuitions are alerting us to a real fire, a genuine right and wrong? We have been wired that way by our Creator.”

Perhaps we are all moral absolutists? In fact, my respondent had been morally absolute against moral absolutism. Even those who say, “we cannot know,” tend to be absolutists about their agnosticism.

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