A Pill for Men?

[JoshuaD]

Josh: I'm pretty sure you reject objective morality. In fact, I think you ultimately reject free will, which necessarily rejects the entire study of morality.
Tom: Nope. I'm a materialist, not a relativist.

From our prior conversations, this is a pleasant surprise for me. You agree that morality is a reality that we discover rather than one that we create (and could create differently if we pleased)?

In addition to being a materialist, are you also a determinist?

Tom:I think it is generally possible, from a position of reason, to conclude what is or is not the optimum resolution of most ethical questions -- but also think that the optimum position may well change based on circumstance.

I agree, we often can reason about what is good or evil. I also agree, God is not a simple deontological machine; He comprehends all of the circumstances of an action in his judgment.

Tom:This might smell quite a lot like relativism....

This doesn't smell like relativism to me at all. Relativism is the rejection of objective morality. Objective truths can be, and often are, nuanced.

Tom:  as it comes close to Fenring's "slavery was okay in ancient times because it was necessary for a functional society and regular jubilees prevented generations of chattel slaves," but insofar as relativism can be expressed as "as long as enough people think something is okay, it is," I don't fall into that category. If you're defining relativism considerably more narrowly, as "the ultimate resolution of any ethical question should be guided by a combination of reasoned moral principle and considered circumstance," then I'll gladly accept the label.

Once again, you seem to be agreeing with a Catholic view. Can you drill into what you mean by "reasoned moral principles" a bit?

Tom: I believe that quite a lot of the moral positions that you (and others) might consider absolute and objective are in fact products of social conditioning.

Can you give an example? I don't see how this is a particularly problematic indictment. It seems completely normal to me that we would learn about morality from one another. Maybe if I were really smart I could rediscover general relativity all on my own. I'm not that clever, so I just learn from Einstein. In the same way, I benefit from the moral wisdom and experience of people around me.

Tom: And morality from my POV absolutely does not require the presumption of free will, any more than diagnosing a machine fault requires first that the device choose to be broken.

We are using the word equivocally. I understand morality to be "what we ought to choose to do". As we discussed earlier in the thread, if we cannot choose, our actions do not have a moral character.

You and I seemed to agree earlier in the thread that if I was fully mind-controlled by an alien species, I would not be morally culpable if that alien used my body to do murder. Similarly, if I am fully controlled by the laws of physics, materialism, and determinism, I can't see how it would make sense to say I am morally culpable if those things force me to commit murder.

The purpose in diagnosing a machine is to restore its operation back towards its intended purpose. Have you embraced a teleological viewpoint?

[jc44]

I brought up scripture in relation to slavery as slavery was certainly practiced at the time and if it was a clear Evil then then I would have expected at least a couple of words on the subject. If it is necessary to say "thou shalt not kill" (or I believe murder in more recent translations) and slavery is only one notch below that in Evil then you might have expected there to be a mention somewhere.

I really don't see the point in going into another tangent here. I brought up chattel slavery and cannibalism to contradict the idea that morality is defined by popular opinion, not to derail the thread further.

That being said,
1. I do not think slavery is intrinsically evil (see * below) which is why I specified chattel slavery in my post (which I tend to think is intrinsically evil),
2. I did not say that "slavery is only one notch below murder in evil". Slavery generally seems real bad to me. I don't know about all the rest of that stuff you made up and then attributed to me.

* Imagine it's 10,000 BC and you just got attacked by a strange tribe of one thousand men who were led by someone who hated you. He was a also a good provider, so plenty of people followed him. You defeat his army and there are one hundred of his men left alive. What do you do with them? If you let them go free, there's every chance they might sneak into your camp at night and kill you. There are no prisons. You don't have the technology to transport them magically away from you. You can kill them, but that kind of sucks. In this circumstance, slavery to me seems like a mercy. You enslave them, you get to know them, you integrate them into your society, you humanize them and show your humanity to them, and you hope to be able to integrate them at some point. This seems better than just executing them outright to me.

Having wandered through your references it is clear that Native Americans were seen as not-slaves from quite early by the Catholic church (15xx) but it takes until your last reference in 1888 for black Africans to be not-slaves. So again for something where natural reason "clearly" says this is evil it took a while for it to be actually said. As an aside I have to say that Urban VIII was an interesting character - wars, overspending and banning tobacco in holy places - in the last at least he was clearly ahead of his time!

If you'd like to talk about this topic, we can. If you're going to sneer at me, I am not going to spend time carefully thinking through your question, gather useful sources for you to look at, and then writing up a careful response. If you want to talk sincerely, great. I'm in. If you want to sneer, you can go look in a mirror or find some midwit on reddit to exchange words with.

Believe it or not I'm not attempting to sneer at you - I _am_ poking at your argument, which seems to me to be, that there is a single eternal objective morality that defines some acts as evil irrespective of circumstance that can be discovered through reason. You brought up slavery & cannibalism as obvious evils so I assumed that they fell into that category. You then provided me with references which I assumed were meant to back up your argument so I read them - I found them less convincing than I think you do and I pointed out why - if slavery is simply bad and has always been bad (which it would have to be if we are dealing with an objective morality?) then why didn't the first bull simply say that enslaving anyone is wrong rather than picking a particular set of people for which it was wrong.

I used scripture as starting point because you quite often appear to use Roman Catholic Christianity as a touchstone for this eternal truth.

I doubt we are going to agree but I respect that you believe what you are saying here.

FWIW I do agree with your 10,000BC example above.

[Fenring]

This is a terrible and non-catholic argument. If and when slavery is evil, no amount of "need of civilization" would justify it. Acts that are evil in the means can never be justified by the ends.

You aren't understanding the argument, then.

[Fenring]

I think one detail we need to remember when discussing what is or isn't objectively true, is that this type of truth is an evaluation of the whole system - meaning, that there are purposes to things (and to our lives), that actions play into this, that there's an objective moral world out there, and that the combination of all these leads certain actions to be bad. But starting at the conclusions (X is bad) can be complicated to inspect since then you'd need all the other stuff to explain how that could be. It might be simpler in some cases to begin with the idea that many types of actions have moral content, or in other words to say they matter a lot for some reason. Even if we don't begin with the conclusion, e.g. 'contraception is evil', which can be difficult to accept unless you are already disposed to agree with a series of other truths, we might still be able to start with the simpler proposition that 'sex means something'. This may sound nebulous but it's a starting point. Which actions in our life, which situations, have a moral character and therefore call us to particular actions, and require things of us? Many people today seem to feel like nothing is required of them; 'I don't owe anyone a thing.' That didn't used to be the general feeling among people though, even atheists. You owe back your society, your parents, have to give back what was given you, and all the rest. Beyond these generalities there are specifics too, though. In fact it might be a good thought exercise to ask which situations in life, if any, do not have a moral component, and therefore truly require nothing of you. Are there areas of life where you have no duties whatsoever? To ask what moral elements are contained in sex may seem to some as a strange question, but I think it's strange not to ask it, since clearly it's the most important topic to a great many. Even before arriving close to some objective truth about, e.g. contraception, this can be a manner of exploring these topics. Does sex 'mean anything'? Is there some really important element behind it that goes beyond two bodies engaging in some arbitrary activity? Or does it mean nothing to you, no more than playing Parcheesi? And if something does have a moral component, then you can ask what sorts of things are required of you, and work from there. You could ask the same of other areas, for instance lying to people (or bearing false witness). Since I think there is obvious utility in lying at various times, you would need a reason beyond utility to explain why doing so is wrong anyhow. Some cultures at present have more of an antipathy towards randomly lying, while others have it more a part of their regular culture. If one of these approaches is objectively better, why is it?

[Tom]

You agree that morality is a reality that we discover rather than one that we create (and could create differently if we pleased)?

I don't believe in "realities" the way you do. The idea that there's a "physical reality" and a separate "moral reality" is as bizarre to me as claiming that there's a "mathematical reality" and a "historical reality."

There is reality, and there are models and filters we apply to reality (both consciously and unconsciously) to better predict and interpret the interactions of things within that reality. In the same way that we can speak of Euclidean geometry specifically to exclude certain types of real interactions that fall outside the scope of what's currently being considered, we can speak of different sorts of contexts -- literature, ethics, etc. -- to allow us to limit our targets and more easily reach agreement on intersecting definitions.

To put that in perspective, I think the analysis of literature can be as objective as ethical analysis, and in precisely the same way and with the same limitations.

I understand morality to be "what we ought to choose to do".

Why? That seems to be quite an artificial restriction. It'd be like declaring morality to be "what primates choose to do," and thus with one wiggle of a pen making it impossible for non-primates to be moral. Although I suppose, for those of us who're soft determinists, the real issue here is what it means to "choose" something. I maintain that the concept of a human being as a singular entity capable of independent decision-making is a convenient fiction that makes it significantly easier for us to interact with and diagnose reality, but it's as imperfect a model as Newtonian physics.

Similarly, if I am fully controlled by the laws of physics, materialism, and determinism, I can't see how it would make sense to say I am morally culpable if those things force me to commit murder.

I'm not sure why "culpability" matters to this question at all, once you accept both materialism and limited determinism. What is relevant -- unless you actually worry about blame, which I do not -- is whether you are acting morally. Why do you consider culpability to be an essential element of morality, beyond the importance of identifying what specifically is malfunctioning, and in which way?

I don't see how this is a particularly problematic indictment. It seems completely normal to me that we would learn about morality from one another.

As we've discussed earlier, there have been several historical societies in which child sacrifice was considered an unfortunate necessity; there are others where simply baring one's shoulders or hair is considered dangerously provocative. It is "problematic" to accept the influence of social conditioning only insofar as it winds up stacking multiple appeals to authority on top of what is already usually a very shaky epistemological foundation for regional mores.

Have you embraced a teleological viewpoint?

Charitably, no. If I say "let's take that sharp broken handle off the wall so no one can trip and impale themselves on it," it is irrelevant to my reasoning whether the handle is a broom handle, a shovel handle, or in fact a spike intentionally mounted on the wall to impale the unwary.

[yossarian22c]

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/09/1161981923/girls-in-texas-could-get-birth-control-at-federal-clinics-until-a-dad-sued

Haven serves both English and Spanish speakers, providing contraception, testing for pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, and cervical cancer screening, all at low cost or without charge to patients who are anxious, impoverished, or both.

Those patients include teenage girls — under 18 — seeking birth control pills or long-acting contraception.

But under a startling court decision issued in December, a federal judge ruled that such clinics violate Texas state law and federal constitutional rights, effectively cutting off a vital source of health care for young women across Texas.
...
In his suit, Deanda, a Christian, said he was "raising each of [his] daughters in accordance with Christian teaching on matters of sexuality" and that he could have no "assurance that his children will be unable to access prescription contraception" that "facilitate sexual promiscuity and premarital sex."

In his opinion, Kacsmaryk agreed, writing that "the use of contraception (just like abortion) violates traditional tenets of many faiths, including the Christian faith plaintiff practices."

I know this thread has moved far afield from contraceptives, but this seems like a nice fit to the start of the thread. Conservatives are starting the attack on contraceptives.

[Tom]

the use of contraception (just like abortion) violates traditional tenets of many faiths, including the Christian faith plaintiff practices

I can't wait until they stop selling pork to minors.

[JoshuaD]

jc44 Believe it or not I'm not attempting to sneer at you - I _am_ poking at your argument, which seems to me to be, that there is a single eternal objective morality that defines some acts as evil irrespective of circumstance that can be discovered through reason.

Lol, what? I I have said circumstances are relevant in this thread about a dozen times:

Josh: God is not a simple deontological machine; He comprehends all of the circumstances of an action in his judgment.
Josh: In this circumstance, slavery to me seems like a mercy.
Josh: If I want to be as generous as possible to your original post, I will say that God understands the full circumstances of our sins, and judges us justly and with mercy.
Josh:  I'm not trying to tangent the thread again from this already long tangent on whether eating the flesh of the already deceased is forbidden in every imaginable circumstance. In the general case, it is certainly evil.
Josh: The object is to buy bread, the intention is to feed your family so they don't starve, and the circumstances (while unfortunate) do not change the act to an evil act; it's not generally reasonable to expect that by buying a loaf of bread you'll cause someone else to starve to death.
Josh: In order for an act to be moral, it must pass three tests: the object must not be evil, the intention must not be evil, and the circumstances must not be evil
Josh: The Church talks about all sorts of ways a person might not be fully guilty of their sins due to mitigating circumstances.
Josh: Intention is only one part of the three-pronged test for whether an act is evil. In addition to intention being good, the object and the circumstances must also be good
Josh: As I said: a person might have committed apparently evil acts but those acts did not constitute a moral evil because of some mitigating circumstances
Josh: When you say "But if you commit evil without intending evil" you seem to be thinking that as long as I don't intend evil, then the act is not evil. But that's not right. Both the object and the circumstances of the act must also be good for the act to be good.
Josh: he doctrinal support for this is in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1749-1761. It specifies that an act can only be moral if it has a good object, a good intention, and good circumstances. 

jc44I used scripture as starting point because you quite often appear to use Roman Catholic Christianity as a touchstone for this eternal truth.

Yeah, Catholics do not have faith in scripture in that way. That viewpoint is typically embraced by fundamentalist Christians. There are plenty of things that are true that are not revealed in scripture.

[JoshuaD]

Josh:You agree that morality is a reality that we discover rather than one that we create?
Tom: I don't believe in "realities" the way you do. The idea that there's a "physical reality" and a separate "moral reality" is as bizarre to me as claiming that there's a "mathematical reality" and a "historical reality."

There is one reality. When I talk of there being a physical reality and a moral reality, I am not suggesting they are distinct in the way you're saying. I can talk about the reality of my desk and the reality of my lamp without suggesting there are multiple competing realities. In the same way, I can talk about the physical reality and the moral reality without suggesting they are distinct things. They are both aspects of one reality. 

Tom: Although I suppose, for those of us who're soft determinists, the real issue here is what it means to "choose" something. I maintain that the concept of a human being as a singular entity capable of independent decision-making is a convenient fiction that makes it significantly easier for us to interact with and diagnose reality, but it's as imperfect a model as Newtonian physics.

It means what it plainly means: I have the ability to freely choose between alternatives. My acts are not dictated exclusively by material cause-and-effect.

It is the most obvious and accurate interpretation of our moment-to-moment experiences, and nothing in the study of science has suggested that it is false. I've never seen a compelling reason to reject it. Why should I reject my obvious experience that I can choose between left and right, and can choose between good and evil?

Josh: I understand morality to be "what we ought to choose to do".
Tom: Why? That seems to be quite an artificial restriction. It'd be like declaring morality to be "what primates choose to do," and
---
Josh: Similarly, if I am fully controlled by the laws of physics, materialism, and determinism, I can't see how it would make sense to say I am morally culpable if those things force me to commit murder.
Josh: I'm not sure why "culpability" matters to this question at all, once you accept both materialism and limited determinism. What is relevant -- unless you actually worry about blame, which I do not -- is whether you are acting morally. Why do you consider culpability to be an essential element of morality, beyond the importance of identifying what specifically is malfunctioning, and in which way?

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, there is a distinction between moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil is when a person freely chooses to sin. In rejecting free will, you categorically reject the existence of moral evil. You only believe in what Catholics call "natural evil". 

The purpose of what I said isn't to create an artificial restriction like you suggest, but rather to distinguish between distinct things. There is an essential distinction between a rock falling on my head in a freak accident, and you (a being with free will) dropping a rock on my head.

If you don't have free will -- if determinism is true -- you are not essentially different than the rock in terms of your actions. In this imagined case, you and the rock both moved as a matter of necessary cause-and-effect. The essential difference I point at is non-existent in your view, so of course it seems absurd to you that I would distinguish between the two cases.

But free will is real, and so of course it makes sense to distinguish between acts of will and natural motion.

Josh:I don't see how this is a particularly problematic indictment. It seems completely normal to me that we would learn about morality from one another.
Tom:As we've discussed earlier, there have been several historical societies in which child sacrifice was considered an unfortunate necessity; there are others where simply baring one's shoulders or hair is considered dangerously provocative. It is "problematic" to accept the influence of social conditioning only insofar as it winds up stacking multiple appeals to authority on top of what is already usually a very shaky epistemological foundation for regional mores.

Yes, there is a danger in that. My highshcool biology teacher very well may have taught me bogus science. It doesn't matter as relates to the topic. Of course we can and should learn from one another.

[Fenring]

I think it is generally possible, from a position of reason, to conclude what is or is not the optimum resolution of most ethical questions -- but also think that the optimum position may well change based on circumstance.

I've thought about this distinction since you wrote it, and I've decided I'm not completely convinced it's incompatible with Catholic teachings (if that matters to you). I'll cite C.S. Lewis, who was technically Anglican but is very well respected in Catholic circles. He ideas aren't doctrine but they are often illuminating and interesting. In his Space Trilogy he outlines a moral metaphysics wherein there are objective moral truths, but that these can and do shift over time. As an example, he suggests that King Arthur in his day may have been considered to be a great and noble Christian King even though in his reign he acted as knights did and killed people a lot. Lewis' argument is that it would be wrong - not merely ahistorical but factually wrong - to suggest that Arthur acted immorally due to our current moral frameworks, which are far more restrictive in terms of when killing others is permissible. If someone today went around in armor challenging people to duels and killing them for honor we would call that person a murderer, but it would be incorrect to call King Arthur a murderer. Lewis' idea is that this isn't merely the mistake of judging people in history by today's standards (which is even a no-no among materialist historians), but is in fact related to a shifting objective moral landscape over time. His example ties moral changes to, let's say, advances in human society, whereas I think what you're describing is simply various circumstances of any type that may change the calculus. I am personally not at all sure that either of these is discordant with Catholic teaching. There are many Catholics who would disagree with me on this point, mind you.

As Joshua has also pointed out, the 'rules' are not some pie in the sky Kantian moral imperative but are meant to be situationally logical and tied to actual circumstances.

[Fenring]

Tom: Although I suppose, for those of us who're soft determinists, the real issue here is what it means to "choose" something. I maintain that the concept of a human being as a singular entity capable of independent decision-making is a convenient fiction that makes it significantly easier for us to interact with and diagnose reality, but it's as imperfect a model as Newtonian physics.

It means what it plainly means: I have the ability to freely choose between alternatives. My acts are not dictated exclusively by material cause-and-effect.

I just want to mention as a sidebar that this issue is really understated in these debates. I think it can be hard for many religious people to grasp how outrageous a claim it is that one's actions be be a result of something other than material cause and effect. I would freely admit that it's an outrageous claim, even though I think it's true.

[JoshuaD]

I don't think it's outrageous at all. I think it's the plain and obvious reality of what we experience. It's like saying that the fact that blue is so bright and beautiful is outrageous.  I guess in some sense that's true; all of reality is astounding. But I don't think the reality of free will is any more outrageous than the reality of my hand or of the stars.

It only seems that way because our education system trains us to think in a very stilted way. Physical reductionalism is the default frame of our current education system, and physical reductionalism has trouble accounting for things like free will.

[Fenring]

I think it's outrageous in the way it would be if you rolled a billiard ball into another one, and there was no effect on it - it didn't move at all! And then someone argues the other billiard ball had 'free will' and was immune to effects in physics and could just choose to not have the impact transfer all the kinetic energy into it forcing it to move. "No one can make me move!" says the ball. I think materialists see it like this; it could only be magic, or something like that, because otherwise how could inputs not lead to equal outputs, if mass and energy are conserved. It's a bold claim to say that there is something else in play that in fact effects material objects but is not affected by them (i.e. is not itself subject to the material laws of physics). There's a lot to unpack there, and the first person who rigorously tried to extract all the corollaries of this from me was quite surprised.

[JoshuaD]

Yes, like I said, it only seems that way because our education system trains us to think in a very stilted way. Physical reductionalism is the default frame of our current education system, and physical reductionalism has trouble accounting for things like free will.

Your example agrees with my point. We're obviously not billiard balls. It's a strange way of thinking which imagines us akin to them.

[jc44]

jc44 Believe it or not I'm not attempting to sneer at you - I _am_ poking at your argument, which seems to me to be, that there is a single eternal objective morality that defines some acts as evil irrespective of circumstance that can be discovered through reason.

Lol, what? I I have said circumstances are relevant in this thread about a dozen times:

Josh: God is not a simple deontological machine; He comprehends all of the circumstances of an action in his judgment.
Josh: In this circumstance, slavery to me seems like a mercy.
Josh: If I want to be as generous as possible to your original post, I will say that God understands the full circumstances of our sins, and judges us justly and with mercy.
Josh:  I'm not trying to tangent the thread again from this already long tangent on whether eating the flesh of the already deceased is forbidden in every imaginable circumstance. In the general case, it is certainly evil.
Josh: The object is to buy bread, the intention is to feed your family so they don't starve, and the circumstances (while unfortunate) do not change the act to an evil act; it's not generally reasonable to expect that by buying a loaf of bread you'll cause someone else to starve to death.
Josh: In order for an act to be moral, it must pass three tests: the object must not be evil, the intention must not be evil, and the circumstances must not be evil
Josh: The Church talks about all sorts of ways a person might not be fully guilty of their sins due to mitigating circumstances.
Josh: Intention is only one part of the three-pronged test for whether an act is evil. In addition to intention being good, the object and the circumstances must also be good
Josh: As I said: a person might have committed apparently evil acts but those acts did not constitute a moral evil because of some mitigating circumstances
Josh: When you say "But if you commit evil without intending evil" you seem to be thinking that as long as I don't intend evil, then the act is not evil. But that's not right. Both the object and the circumstances of the act must also be good for the act to be good.
Josh: he doctrinal support for this is in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1749-1761. It specifies that an act can only be moral if it has a good object, a good intention, and good circumstances. 

OK - fair enough. I guess it my fault for assuming that an objective morality must be tied to acts alone. It does make it a lot harder to get away from "evil is what I think is evil" as circumstances must be considered in each and every case.

jc44I used scripture as starting point because you quite often appear to use Roman Catholic Christianity as a touchstone for this eternal truth.

Yeah, Catholics do not have faith in scripture in that way. That viewpoint is typically embraced by fundamentalist Christians. There are plenty of things that are true that are not revealed in scripture.

...and that there are things in the bible that are not true? (honest question to understand where you are coming from).

P.S. A bit earlier you said that the protestants had removed a number of books from the bible - are those what I would know as the Apocrypha or are they some others? and so do Roman Catholics use a different bible to Protestants (and if not then why not)? I have a the King James and its descendants set as "standard".

[Tom]

It means what it plainly means: I have the ability to freely choose between alternatives.

Who are "you," and what do you mean by "freely?"

[rightleft22]

It means what it plainly means: I have the ability to freely choose between alternatives.

Who are "you," and what do you mean by "freely?"

I am reminded of early debates on this site were many, including myself, ended up frustrated to learn how easily the idea that one can 'freely choose' can be challenged. It seems the moment one uses language to express a experience of 'freely choosing'  the shadow in the words reveals the many ways, not of one choosing, that such a freely choosing was influenced.

Today I am convinced that the only true expression of free will is when you let it go... but I've been spending to much time revisiting the notions behind ZEN so perhaps that is no longer a free choosing

[Tom]

I mean, yeah, it's absolutely trivial to establish that choice is unquestionably constrained. Consider the extremely facile example of an alien who visits our planet and says, "You guys don't have world peace yet? C'mon, all you need to do is frebulize the gromanongers!" In that scenario, it's a choice we haven't made because we didn't even realize it was an available option. There are obviously more nuanced examples of circumstantial constraint out there.

[Tom]

I've been thinking about why Joshua seems to believe that morality requires the concept of culpability, and moreover that culpability requires free will. And I think it boils down to the fact that he does think there's a crucial distinction between a rock falling on your head as a result of high winds and someone dropping a rock on your head because they wanted to; neither the rock nor the wind are intentional agents, and without intent there can be no blame. And I struggled with this because I couldn't really identify why blame MATTERED, when what was actually important was preventing rocks from landing on people. I think I've come up with an answer, but I'd actually like to hear from other people who don't have my perspective: when a rock crushes your car, is it logical to be mad at the rock? If not, why not? If you are negatively affected by what seems to be an application of the physical laws of the universe, is it WRONG of the universe to have done that?

(Edited to add: I of course am intentionally withholding my opinion here so as to not step on anyone else's decision to elaborate. But I think there's something categorical at play.)

[JoshuaD]

Josh: Yeah, Catholics do not have faith in scripture in that way. That viewpoint is typically embraced by fundamentalist Christians. There are plenty of things that are true that are not revealed in scripture.
jc44: ...and that there are things in the bible that are not true? (honest question to understand where you are coming from).

No, the Bible is true. I haven't found anything false or contrary to reason in there.

jc44: P.S. A bit earlier you said that the protestants had removed a number of books from the bible - are those what I would know as the Apocrypha or are they some others?

The 73-book bible was compiled in 382 AD at the council of Rome.  Any book included in the bible was considered canonical. Any book which was potentially included, but ultimately excluded for having doubtful authenticity, were called apocrypha.

In the early 1500's, Martin Luther changed or discounted 18 books of the Bible. Ironically, he simultaneously put forward the idea of scripture alone while discarding any scripture he found problematic for his unique take theology. That's what the kids today call "a real gamer move".

Eventually protestants pulled some of that back, and instead removed just seven books: Tobit, Judith, 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and Baruch.

Catholicism is the true Christianity. The protestants, a shattered group, all have erroneous ideas. If you've seen crazy things said by evangelicals or baptists that you find offputting, you'll find I probably agree those things were crazy.

jc44:and so do Roman Catholics use a different bible to Protestants (and if not then why not)? I have a the King James and its descendants set as "standard".

That's correct, Roman Catholics do not generally use the King James version. The Church hasn't formally denounced it (it hasn't formally denounced any translations) but it is considered problematic for a number of reasons. Foremost, the KJV left out the deuterocanonical books mentioned above. In addition, there a number of more subtle issues I'm not deeply familiar with. 

The Church of England from Rome under Henry the Eighth because he wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Ann Boleyn and Rome would not say that his marriage was invalid.  About 80 years later, the King James Bible was translated under the instruction of James I for this new Church of England. The translation was guided in part by the heretical theology of the Church of England, which is obviously problematic.

All of that being said, I'm not an expert on the history of bible translations. A thing to realize is translation is tricky business, and we are trying to translate from ancient languages, which are they themselves sometimes translations of prior versions. The Church doesn't have one single approved English translation of the bible in part because it recognizes the difficulties here.

I have the Douay Rheims and Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition on my bookshelf. The Douay Rheims is an older translation from the latin vulgae that predates the KJV, and the RSV:CE originated around 1900.  Both are well respected in the Church.

[JoshuaD]

It means what it plainly means: I have the ability to freely choose between alternatives.

Who are "you," and what do you mean by "freely?"

I am a human being, which is a rational creature. I am not reducible to my component parts. You cannot predict my acts by describing me as a collection of particles moving according to predictable natures. God has freedom of will and chose freely to create. He was not required to create due to his nature. He created humans, and gave them free will. So similarly, we are not required to act in a specifically prescribed way by our nature; we are free to choose between alternatives.

[JoshuaD]

I mean, yeah, it's absolutely trivial to establish that choice is unquestionably constrained. Consider the extremely facile example of an alien who visits our planet and says, "You guys don't have world peace yet? C'mon, all you need to do is frebulize the gromanongers!" In that scenario, it's a choice we haven't made because we didn't even realize it was an available option. There are obviously more nuanced examples of circumstantial constraint out there.

Of course choice is constrained. I can't choose to be a woman or fly like a bird. My choice is constrained in some ways, and free in others.

[Fenring]

I mean, yeah, it's absolutely trivial to establish that choice is unquestionably constrained.

The limit to consider isn't whether free will is at all constrained, but rather whether it is at all unconstrained. And...constrained by what?

[rightleft22]

When a rock crushes your car, is it logical to be mad at the rock? If not, why not? If you are negatively affected by what seems to be an application of the physical laws of the universe, is it WRONG of the universe to have done that?

(Edited to add: I of course am intentionally withholding my opinion here so as to not step on anyone else's decision to elaborate. But I think there's something categorical at play.)

It is not logical or reasonable to be mad at the rock... unless one needs the phycological or chemical boost of being angary over things they have no control or influence over.

If one believes that G_d is a kind of Santa Clause Being that exists 'out thier' and who is constantly judging who is good and who is bad and punishing or awarding them accordingly, then I think a argument could be made for it to logical to be mad at the rock as a projection for being mad at such a god.

I suspect that when we are angry abut such things we are really angry at not being in charge of how things ought to be which comes down to the question behind every hero's journey. How do  you respond to the Life as it IS?  That Life devours Life for Life which is its wonder and horror.  YES and you can release the thought of being mad at the rock or NO and you can continue to shake your fist impotently at the reality of Life as it IS

Both Gautama and Jesus responds with a full YES - come follow me and engage in live as it as which includes the cross. With that YES Gautama becomes Buddha and Jesus becomes Christ.
Sadly the baggage that surrenders these wisdom traditions changes the answer to NO or maybe a NO but we can fix Life...  we can fix the rock and stop if from falling if we just follow the rules and be good little boys and girls.

[Fenring]

And I struggled with this because I couldn't really identify why blame MATTERED, when what was actually important was preventing rocks from landing on people.

If by blame you mean being angry at people for transgressing, this is a natural human response but it isn't ideal. To the extent that anger can have a positive function I think it's as a barometer to wake you up and let you know when something is really wrong and requires your action. But engaging in that action in an angry fashion may be counter-productive to yourself and others. If by blame you mean assessing who willed what to happen, that matters a lot because we're not in a video game where everyone else is NPC's. You will see a phenomenon in gaming where in a multi-player environment someone gets upset at another player for doing something detrimental to their playing experience. Although they know that there are other real people playing, their concern is when others ruin their game time and fun. In effect the others are treated as complicated NPC's. And you often see this IRL as well, where people treat others like bots, and interactions between them are simply a means to an end to get what you need (groceries, paycheck, etc). In a moral landscape like that you could imagine harms of various kinds as being sort of flat on a moral scale, and just being a series of incidents that can be corrected as you describe. That gives no weight to choice and treats all phenomena equally as essentially acts of nature. Ignoring the fact that much of the environment is as it is because others willed it to be that way suggests that fixes may not be welcomed, or even opposed. But it goes beyond the psychology of the situation: it is entirely possible to fix material problems, i.e. reduce the 'pain experienced' in some way, and yet to make matters worse for people. This goes back to the gamer problem: what if your gaming experience is improved by fixes, but that results in some gamers leaving the server? Is that a good result? In the moral arena it might mean something horrific for the invididuals who are lost. In principle looking at agency and moral culpability is supposed to be mostly about keeping those players on the server, rather than bashing them for ruining your gaming experience. In fact if you're a mod then your job *is* to see to the well-being of the other players and to make sure no one is left behind. But if they're being left behind, maybe discouraged by poor play in-game, or abusing the system and eventually getting bored of it, they will need attention beyond 'fix the system' to attract them toward good play habits. And just imagine how hard it would be for a game design team for mass perma-bans to not be an option.

Maybe I've overused that analogy...

[JoshuaD]

Tom: I've been thinking about why Joshua seems to believe that morality requires the concept of culpability, and moreover that culpability requires free will. And I think it boils down to the fact that he does think there's a crucial distinction between a rock falling on your head as a result of high winds and someone dropping a rock on your head because they wanted to; neither the rock nor the wind are intentional agents, and without intent there can be no blame.

Yes, this is correct. In Catholic vernacular, you agree there are natural evils, but you reject the existence of moral evils.   

Tom:  And I struggled with this because I couldn't really identify why blame MATTERED, when what was actually important was preventing rocks from landing on people.

Yeah, we don't agree here. The most important thing is not preventing all of the natural evils that might arise. It is good to protect human life and so on, but what is most fundamentally important is developing in virtue, which means comporting our will to God's.   

Tom:I think I've come up with an answer, but I'd actually like to hear from other people who don't have my perspective: when a rock crushes your car, is it logical to be mad at the rock? If not, why not?

I don't know what you mean by "logical". This spock-like framing always confuses me. The rock is not a person. You shouldn't treat it in the same way that you would treat a person. That's "logical" to me.

Tom: If you are negatively affected by what seems to be an application of the physical laws of the universe, is it WRONG of the universe to have done that?

Certainly not in the same way that it is wrong for me to do that to you. You can't even say the universe "did" it in the same way that I "did" it. When you say that you're using the word "did" analogically.

This question touches on the problem of evil. We can go into those waters if you want.

[JoshuaD]

This is a terrible and non-catholic argument. If and when slavery is evil, no amount of "need of civilization" would justify it. Acts that are evil in the means can never be justified by the ends.

You aren't understanding the argument, then.

What did I miss?

[Fenring]

What did I miss?

It's an argument about essentially the shifting moral evaluation of an act. For example I think it would be contrary to reason to argue that the Ancient Judeans were committing a horrible crime by having slavery in their society, and that we should conclude that the OT encouraged an evil society by its failure to condemn this (and the corollary that "the Bible teaches that slavery is ok, just as it tought to stone witches to death"). I think we could offer an objective statement that instituting slavery today would be objectively wrong, but many people make the mistake of thinking this means that people 3,000 years ago were essentially criminals and that we should sneer at them for their evil ways. I can find no good evidence that we should assume the Ancient Judeans were doing something terrible and were just ignorant about it; why give the people a comprehensive moral code and leave out that part? That makes slavery a sticky issue, since indeed it must be asked why it was not outright forbidden as an abomination. I would like to at least suggest that is because it was not one...then. Like I mentioned to NH, this is a working theory of mine, not a conviction. But I do stand by what I said about slavery being a bad example to bring up because it's one of the more difficult areas to nail down. I say this especially because of a lot of practices today that are technically not slavery but verge toward many of its characteristics, and so how humans use other humans for productivity purposes appears to me to be an extremely involved subject, not one that can be just thrown out there as proof of something.

[Tom]

If by blame you mean assessing who willed what to happen, that matters a lot because we're not in a video game where everyone else is NPC's...

But why does who willed it to happen actually matter? What is the POINT of evaluating a moral act, of determining whether or not something is ethical?
(Note: I believe I have an answer to this question. But, again, I don't want to foul the water by volunteering my opinion yet.)

Edited to add: I'm afraid that elaborating will focus the question unnecessarily and possibly be less interesting, but I'm going to do it anyway. Consider: we seem to be in agreement that it doesn't make much sense to be mad at a rock for crushing your car. The rock did not commit a moral wrong by doing so; it has not chosen to harm you, and it is the choice to harm you that apparently merits your ire. We don't punish a rock for falling; we simply take steps to make it less likely that rocks will fall on cars in the future, by putting up netting or warning signs near parking spaces or whatever. Because we agree that the point of a reaction to a "natural" harm is to try to prevent or minimize that harm. But if it's an intentional harm, suddenly there's another factor: we don't just put up nets, or a sign saying "Danger! Someone might push a rock onto your car if you park here!" Now we perceive an additional moral dimension that implies and incorporates an obligation to correct the intent of a sapient actor.

[Fenring]

But why does who willed it to happen actually matter? What is the POINT of evaluating a moral act, of determining whether or not something is ethical?

Don't forget we're moving away from "how can I avoid being hit by rocks" as a criterion. If that's all it was, you're right, it wouldn't matter how it happened other than you might need a different strategy in dealing with people-nature versus cliff-nature. But the moral claim being made is that you need to do the evaluation in full, which includes not only some vague prohibition about rocks but includes one's state of mind, goals in life, view of life, views toward the betterment of others, and so forth; all of this goes into whether or not you should shove rocks around. In fact this divides into whether you may do so, and whether you should do so, which is another part of it. Per the famous dictum that an "is" cannot yield an "ought", the moral framework at minimum should outline what you ought not to do. It becomes more involved to find out what you ought to do, but for this part (which is in a sense elective) you will definitely need the moral will of others to be in your mind because otherwise you won't be able to help them go through this same discernment process. You might very well be able to help someone else do it far better than you can bootstrap yourself to do, and hopefully someone will come along to help you too. There are people, I think, who seem to be of the mind that you should just mind your own business and not try to help people. I think this is a bad mindset, but it does raise the question of what the best way is to help others, which is by no means obvious.

I want to go back to another comment you made, at the risk of derailing further:

we seem to be in agreement that it doesn't make much sense to be mad at a rock for crushing your car.

I am actually not 100% in agreement with this! It all depends on what we mean by "mind" when we assign blame to minds that will bad things upon us. I am quite open to, even fascinated by, the idea that mind and intelligence are concepts far deeper than just "organisms with brains". And I will remind you that Catholics do believe in spirits, and that they are actual beings that do things. They can even affect the material world. Now before we get worried that this is mystical voodoo, the term "beings" and "spirits" may be misunderstood as meaning ghosts and invisible stuff that flies around like Casper and Nearly Headless Nick. It's a bit trickier than that, but without really getting into it Catholic priests for example often report mysterious and irritating things happening to them as they're about to do really important deeds, like wasps stinging them in the face of out nowhere and so forth. You can believe that claim or not, but it's not out of the question for a Catholic to wonder whether literal demons fling rocks at people sometimes to try to dissuade them doing good things, to make it too much trouble, or too painful. From this standpoint even pains caused by natural elements may have been inflicted 'on purpose' to hurt you, and for specific reasons. Sometimes individuals feel like the world is out to get them, and I think there may be something to this. So yes, it's possible to actually get upset at rocks flung by nobody (not the rock, really, but the forces you can't see behind it). I mean, heck, once we allow in free will as being something not bound up in materialistic nature, a whole host of other possible things are going to come along with that, no? Once there's another domain of activity you can expect it will be active.

[Wayward Son]

I think we could offer an objective statement that instituting slavery today would be objectively wrong, but many people make the mistake of thinking this means that people 3,000 years ago were essentially criminals and that we should sneer at them for their evil ways.

It's not so much "sneering" at them as learning from their mistakes.

It was evil then, and it is evil now.  It's just that we have learned better since then.

[Fenring]

It was evil then, and it is evil now.  It's just that we have learned better since then.

I would like to respectfully point out that, in my observation, the most likely people to make this particular type of absolute statement are moral relativists. I trust the irony is not lost.

[TheDrake]

I wonder if the people doing objectively terrible things now like making workers pee their pants and injure themselves on the job will have their defenders in the distant future,  the year 2084.

[JoshuaD]

Fenring:  I think we could offer an objective statement that instituting slavery today would be objectively wrong, but many people make the mistake of thinking this means that people 3,000 years ago were essentially criminals and that we should sneer at them for their evil ways. I can find no good evidence that we should assume the Ancient Judeans were doing something terrible and were just ignorant about it; why give the people a comprehensive moral code and leave out that part? That makes slavery a sticky issue, since indeed it must be asked why it was not outright forbidden as an abomination. I would like to at least suggest that is because it was not one...then.

I agree; slavery isn't intrinsically evil. I wrote a bunch about this in a previous post in this thread. Do a search for "mercy" and you'll find it.

Fenring: It's an argument about essentially the shifting moral evaluation of an act. For example I think it would be contrary to reason to argue that the Ancient Judeans were committing a horrible crime by having slavery in their society, and that we should conclude that the OT encouraged an evil society by its failure to condemn this.

The moral law didn't change; the circumstances changed. If society collapsed and we went back to some tribal based system (like say, the Walking Dead) slavery would be a reasonable mercy in certain circumstances.

The moral law is constant.

Fenring: and the corollary that "the Bible teaches that slavery is ok

Chattal slavery seems to me to be an intrinsic evil, but slavery itself is sometimes good. Nothing about what the bible taught there is wrong. Slavery is sometimes good, and when you have slaves, it is important to treat them humanely (which is the bible's emphasis IIRC).

[Tom]

Zealotry always makes me a little sad.

[JoshuaD]

Tom:  But why does who willed it to happen actually matter? What is the POINT of evaluating a moral act, of determining whether or not something is ethical?

As I indicated to Fenring twice in the thread, I'm not primarily concerned with trying to build a utopia with good laws and good government. I'm not interested in creating laws that induce people to act in accordance with my will. I think that's impossible for two reasons: firstly, there will not be a utopia on earth, and secondly, the only way to have a good society is to have individuals and families who choose to be good and virtuous. The health of a society cannot be imposed from the top, but is instead created from the bottom. I can't express how deeply I reject the idea that our primary role is as political actors pulling on the governor's arm to try to create some new legislation or change some ruling or whatever else. All of that strikes me as a largely masturbatory surrogate activity.

I'm not terribly interested in the guilt of others. I'm not terribly interested in being mad at some other sinner who wronged me (or some rock that fell on my head). I'm interested primarily in how I should act: how I treat my friends, how I raise my children, how I treat my wife, how I organize my household, how I comport myself professionally, and how I treat the strangers I meet. In addition, how I face adversity, how I deal with suffering, how I react to good fortune, how I maintain my inner spiritual life, and so on.

I truly have come believe that God created everything, God is good, and God gave us free will with the desire that we use our will for good. He could make this world a utopia faster than I can blink an eye. He could annihilate Satan and every demon, or convert them to  good against their will. He could strike evil from the heart of every man and puppeteer everything. He has chosen not to do that for reasons that I can only glimpse vaguely. But it's clear to me that the most important thing I can do is do my best to be morally good.

So that is why the distinction between moral evil and natural evil is important. The world will always have natural evil (and often times we can see how this is good). It's not my job to eradicate natural evil from the world, it's my job to eradicate moral evil from my heart and mind so I am able to live in eternity with God.

[JoshuaD]

Tom:  I'm afraid that elaborating will focus the question unnecessarily and possibly be less interesting, but I'm going to do it anyway. Consider: we seem to be in agreement that it doesn't make much sense to be mad at a rock for crushing your car. The rock did not commit a moral wrong by doing so; it has not chosen to harm you, and it is the choice to harm you that apparently merits your ire. We don't punish a rock for falling; we simply take steps to make it less likely that rocks will fall on cars in the future, by putting up netting or warning signs near parking spaces or whatever. Because we agree that the point of a reaction to a "natural" harm is to try to prevent or minimize that harm. But if it's an intentional harm, suddenly there's another factor: we don't just put up nets, or a sign saying "Danger! Someone might push a rock onto your car if you park here!" Now we perceive an additional moral dimension that implies and incorporates an obligation to correct the intent of a sapient actor.

It is good that when I do something that is bad for my body, I feel pain. This feedback allows me to calibrate my physical actions in a way that allows me to protect my body and use it in a constructive and healthy way.

In the same way, it is good that I feel pain when I do moral evil. This feedback allows me to calibrate my will in a way that allows me to live in a more constructive and healthy way.

I think when our criminal laws should be written with this principle in mind. When we punish prisoners, we should be doing it for their benefit. Our judicial system fails miserably at this goal. I don't want society to punish criminals out of anger, I want society to punish criminals to protect the innocent and to rehabilitate the criminal.

A rock is entirely different. Put some retaining walls on a mountain when it makes sense so rocks don't surprise people. The mountain is not a person; it cannot repent; it does not have a will.

[JoshuaD]

I think we could offer an objective statement that instituting slavery today would be objectively wrong, but many people make the mistake of thinking this means that people 3,000 years ago were essentially criminals and that we should sneer at them for their evil ways.

It's not so much "sneering" at them as learning from their mistakes.

It was evil then, and it is evil now.  It's just that we have learned better since then.

You think ancient tribes would have been more good and more just if they massacred their prisoners of war rather than enslaving them?  What do you expect them to do after they win a just war against a neighboring tribe?

[TheDrake]

I think we could offer an objective statement that instituting slavery today would be objectively wrong, but many people make the mistake of thinking this means that people 3,000 years ago were essentially criminals and that we should sneer at them for their evil ways.

It's not so much "sneering" at them as learning from their mistakes.

It was evil then, and it is evil now.  It's just that we have learned better since then.

You think ancient tribes would have been more good and more just if they massacred their prisoners of war rather than enslaving them?  What do you expect them to do after they win a just war against a neighboring tribe?

Well, let's see, in modern times, decent nations let them go. Is that a bad move on our part that we are not enslaving POWs or murdering them? What do you suppose the Christ would advise? "Enslave the losers, for truly what else ya gonna do?"

[JoshuaD]

You think ancient tribes would have been more good and more just if they massacred their prisoners of war rather than enslaving them?  What do you expect them to do after they win a just war against a neighboring tribe?

Well, let's see, in modern times, decent nations let them go. Is that a bad move on our part that we are not enslaving POWs or murdering them? What do you suppose the Christ would advise? "Enslave the losers, for truly what else ya gonna do?"

You're not thinking, you're just arguing. Ancient times weren't modern times.

When we release prisoners of war now, we send professional soldiers back to their family halfway around the world. In ancient times, it was a tribe who lived within 100 miles from you who decided it was a good idea to kill you and take all your stuff. If you send them back home, it is reasonable to expect that they could be back in a month for vengeance and victory.

[TheDrake]

You think ancient tribes would have been more good and more just if they massacred their prisoners of war rather than enslaving them?  What do you expect them to do after they win a just war against a neighboring tribe?

Well, let's see, in modern times, decent nations let them go. Is that a bad move on our part that we are not enslaving POWs or murdering them? What do you suppose the Christ would advise? "Enslave the losers, for truly what else ya gonna do?"

You're not thinking, you're just arguing. Ancient times weren't modern times.

When we release prisoners of war now, we send professional soldiers back to their family halfway around the world. In ancient times, it was a tribe who lived within 100 miles from you who decided it was a good idea to kill you and take all your stuff. If you send them back home, it is reasonable to expect that they could be back in a month for vengeance and victory.

People are still making these arguments today. Life in prison for everyone, because they might reoffend. Treat prisoners of war like the Japanese did less than 100 years ago. They might come back, they might steal again. Give me a break. Nobody in America was saying, hey you got to give the Japanese a break, because you know, if they set someone free they might kill again. It makes perfect sense to put them on a death march, in fact its more merciful than slaughtering them.

Your treatment of what it means to have a POW in terms of Geography is way off. German POWs held by the French in WW1 were returned to Germany. Some number of those came back in WW2. They share a border. American POWs could be back in Afghanistan 24 hours after being sent back to Wisconsin.

Do I acknowledge that those arguments have more merit then than now? Do I acknowledge that the moral code as understood at the time was different? Sure. But that doesn't mean it wasn't always wrong and always will be, FYI, even in the apocalypse to come.

[Tom]

Ancient times weren't modern times.

You moral relativist, you.

[JoshuaD]

Josh: You think ancient tribes would have been more good and more just if they massacred their prisoners of war rather than enslaving them?  What do you expect them to do after they win a just war against a neighboring tribe?

Drake: Well, let's see, in modern times, decent nations let them go. Is that a bad move on our part that we are not enslaving POWs or murdering them? What do you suppose the Christ would advise? "Enslave the losers, for truly what else ya gonna do?"

Josh: You're not thinking, you're just arguing. Ancient times weren't modern times.

When we release prisoners of war now, we send professional soldiers back to their family halfway around the world. In ancient times, it was a tribe who lived within 100 miles from you who decided it was a good idea to kill you and take all your stuff. If you send them back home, it is reasonable to expect that they could be back in a month for vengeance and victory.

Drake:People are still making these arguments today. Life in prison for everyone, because they might reoffend.

Not me.

Drake:Treat prisoners of war like the Japanese did less than 100 years ago. They might come back, they might steal again. Give me a break. Nobody in America was saying, hey you got to give the Japanese a break, because you know, if they set someone free they might kill again. It makes perfect sense to put them on a death march, in fact its more merciful than slaughtering them.

What? Not me.

Drake:Your treatment of what it means to have a POW in terms of Geography is way off. German POWs held by the French in WW1 were returned to Germany. Some number of those came back in WW2. They share a border. American POWs could be back in Afghanistan 24 hours after being sent back to Wisconsin.

In the World Wars, the decisive material wasn't manpower but rather infrastructure, industry, and supply lines. The prisoner you back to Germany released wasn't going to hop your fence in the middle of the night, kill you, and rape your wife. It's entirely different.
 

Drake:Do I acknowledge that the moral code as understood at the time was different?

Who are you responding to here? I have specifically and clearly said the moral law is constant but circumstances change.

Drake:Do I acknowledge that those arguments have more merit then than now?... Sure. But that doesn't mean it wasn't always wrong and always will be, FYI, even in the apocalypse to come.

You haven't responded to my point. You made up a bunch of points I didn't make, wrote a lot of words about those made up points, and then re-stated your premise.

[JoshuaD]

Josh: Ancient times weren't modern times.
Tom: You moral relativist, you.

I'm relatively sure you're just having some fun with me, but this has come up a few times in the thread so I'm going to use your tongue-in-cheek comment as a springboard.

Whether morality is objective is completely unrelated to whether it is nuanced.

We can imagine an objective moral law which is nuanced -- this it what I've articulated in this thread: based on an eternal principle and depending on the object, intent, and circumstances of the act.
 
We can imagine an objective moral law which is deontological -- a relatively small set of rules which are rooted in reality that are applied in every situation.

We can also imagine a relativist moral law which is nuanced -- the moral law is based on agreed-upon principles made up by a particular society, and applied based on a wide consideration of the circumstances.

We can also imagine a relativist moral law which is deontological -- the moral law is based on a made up, relatively small set of agreed-upon rules, which are enforced strictly.

We can also imagine other moral systems, such as something which is consequentialist and so on. My point here isn't to make an complete list, but rather to illustrate that nuance has nothing to do with relativism.

[NobleHunter]

It occurs to me that the POW vs slave argument is similar to the marriage vs celibacy argument. One option is better than the other but the lesser side is better than nothing at all. If one must be a slaver, it is better to be a kind master than a cruel one. And better a kind master than a murderer.

One potential flaw would be if there was the moral and intellectual framework for abolition in antiquity (which is notably present when European slavery re-emerges in the early modern period). Though slavery did end in Europe, I don't know if it was practical concerns or moral objections that did it in.

[TheDrake]

It occurs to me that the POW vs slave argument is similar to the marriage vs celibacy argument. One option is better than the other but the lesser side is better than nothing at all. If one must be a slaver, it is better to be a kind master than a cruel one. And better a kind master than a murderer.

One potential flaw would be if there was the moral and intellectual framework for abolition in antiquity (which is notably present when European slavery re-emerges in the early modern period). Though slavery did end in Europe, I don't know if it was practical concerns or moral objections that did it in.

And better to execute prisoners than to commit genocide? I mean these relative grades of badness have been used traditionally to justify horrific acts.

Enlightened philosophies stop making those distinctions in my mind. Ahimsa, for example,  is to not harm anyone. Unlike "thou shall not kill", it is comprehensive. It doesn't mean you can't defend yourself,  but you can't preemptively kill someone, or maim, or cause to suffer because you fear they might force you to defend yourself in the future. That code has existed for over 4000 years.

[NobleHunter]

And how often for those 4000 years was it honoured in the breach rather than the observance?

Also worth noting that Christianity does relatively quickly develop a moral code prohibiting slavery, mass executions, and genocide (albeit often breached more than observed).

[Fenring]

I am personally skeptical about an objective moral framework wherein slavery is situationally ok, and where that situation could well arise again. For instance if the situation was "IF you are in a tribal scenario, in close geographical proximity, and worry about having perennial attacks, then slavery is ok" then it would follow that even in the present day if thing somehow ended up in this scenario again then slavery would once again be ok. But I'm not sure that would follow, because we are not the same as we used to be 4,000 years ago. Would certain modern people (e.g. the ones who are totally ok with torture and mass murder anyhow) employ slavery anyhow if given the chance? Sure they would. But I'm talking about so-called moral people who believe they have grown beyond certain archaic practices; would they be within their rights to conclude they could be slavers under these conditions? I don't tend to think so.

[JoshuaD]

I am personally skeptical about an objective moral framework wherein slavery is situationally ok, and where that situation could well arise again. For instance if the situation was "IF you are in a tribal scenario, in close geographical proximity, and worry about having perennial attacks, then slavery is ok" then it would follow that even in the present day if thing somehow ended up in this scenario again then slavery would once again be ok. But I'm not sure that would follow, because we are not the same as we used to be 4,000 years ago. Would certain modern people (e.g. the ones who are totally ok with torture and mass murder anyhow) employ slavery anyhow if given the chance? Sure they would. But I'm talking about so-called moral people who believe they have grown beyond certain archaic practices; would they be within their rights to conclude they could be slavers under these conditions? I don't tend to think so.

I'm on a boat with twenty people, we crash, we're on a desert island and awaiting rescue. One person goes crazy and becomes a danger to the other survivors. What do we do with that man?  There is nothing inherently immoral with putting him into some sort of prison against his will until we are rescued. There's also nothing inherently immoral with requiring that he work under the supervision of the other survivors.

One thing that I see happen with you all the time is you think about actions from an abstract, societal-level. You not able to think clearly that way and it's not good to think that way. You don't control society. Morality happens in your hands and in your mind. Not on a social level. The government is not a moral actor.

Another thing that's happening -- which I tried to stave off with my very first post -- is people are conflating this sort of slavery with chattel slavery. I think chattel slavery is inherently evil; there is no circumstance where it can be justified.

On the other hand, taking control of someone else, restricting their freedom, and forcing them to work does not seem to be inherently evil. It can be evil, it can be good, and it depends on the particulars of the situation.

[Fenring]

Joshua, if you're calling restrictions placed on someone else's mobility "slavery" then I suspect you'd get a series of different responses from everyone. Your description makes it sound a lot like you define the prison system that currently exists in the U.S. as slavery. Now to be fair, and this is part of the objection I made to jc44 and NH, slavery in Ancient Judea appears to have included something like a sentence for wrongdoing. I am not sure if it also included putting captures enemies to work as well, but it probably did. What I don't think it included is purchasing people kidnapped from other lands, i.e. a slave trade. I could be wrong about the exact details, I've not studied this in depth, but the word "slavery" appears to be mired in potential equivocations. That being said, I suspect most people here are referring to either chattel slavery, the slave trade, and something like impressing people into service who did nothing beyond being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Punishing a criminal is often necessary, and in fact the situation you mention is precisely one that I myself trot out in regard to the death penalty. It seems to me that under certain restrictive circumstances it just might not be possible to subdue a homicidal maniac sufficiently to prevent him killing. Old small-time towns without sophisticated jail systems could be an example of this, or the desert island scenario. I don't think you'll get that much opposition saying that if you could construct a prison system on the desert island it would be acceptable to confine a dangerous person to it.

One thing that I see happen with you all the time is you think about actions from an abstract, societal-level. You not able to think clearly that way and it's not good to think that way. You don't control society. Morality happens in your hands and in your mind. Not on a social level. The government is not a moral actor.

I'm not sure where you get this from, could you give an example? In the post preceding yours I was talking about individuals who grew up believing that slavery is unacceptable, among other cultural developments.