The denial of moral absolutes rests, I think, on a seductive but fallacious argument, which I shall attempt both to expound and to refute here. Human beings are highly complex creatures living in a highly complex world. Every human being is different from every other, every interaction or relationship between or among human beings is unique. Hence also every occasion for moral choice is also unique, and all those action kinds - be theyadultery, murder, rape, theft, ortorture on which moralists a…
Read moreThe denial of moral absolutes rests, I think, on a seductive but fallacious argument, which I shall attempt both to expound and to refute here. Human beings are highly complex creatures living in a highly complex world. Every human being is different from every other, every interaction or relationship between or among human beings is unique. Hence also every occasion for moral choice is also unique, and all those action kinds - be theyadultery, murder, rape, theft, ortorture on which moralists are accustomed to pass judgment include an enormous variety of differing transactions, which ideally ought to be evaluated one by one. Moreover, each proposed action has a variety of different aspects: intention, foreseen consequence, conventional meaning, and symbolic significance for example, which bear on moral choice in a wide variety of ways. Moral rules are therefore rules of thumb, open to exceptions whenever persuasive arguments for making them are provided.
