"Should be"? Why? Please justify your statement on grounds you see as "eternal"!EricPH wrote: ↑July 30th, 2022, 6:43 pm Eternal moral truths should be rooted in the same justice for all people. We allow about nine million people to die every year from starvation, when rich countries squander billions on slimming products. About 700 million people live on less than two dollars a day. About eight hundred million people go to bed hungry. Yet in the civilised world we waste about 750 million tons of food a year.
Do we have a duty or obligation to share our wealth with those less fortunate?
Are there eternal moral truths?
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Re: Are there eternal moral truths?
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Re: Are there eternal moral truths?
My statement does not need justifying. Justice can only be justice, if the same justice is applied to everyone. Would you think it fair and just if you were one of the 700 million people on Earth living on a couple of dollars a day? There are children in these situations who have the ability to learn the same as us, but they don't have the chance of an education. They will go to bed hungry.Sculptor1 wrote: ↑July 31st, 2022, 4:46 pm"Should be"? Why? Please justify your statement on grounds you see as "eternal"!EricPH wrote: ↑July 30th, 2022, 6:43 pm Eternal moral truths should be rooted in the same justice for all people. We allow about nine million people to die every year from starvation, when rich countries squander billions on slimming products. About 700 million people live on less than two dollars a day. About eight hundred million people go to bed hungry. Yet in the civilised world we waste about 750 million tons of food a year.
Do we have a duty or obligation to share our wealth with those less fortunate?
Like me, you are probably lucky enough to earn more than thirty dollars a day, that puts us in the top 15% of the richest people on Earth. We can't claim we are any better than those living on two dollars a day. We can only claim to be more lucky and fortunate because of our birth. Justice should not depend on luck.
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Re: Are there eternal moral truths?
Funny thing about lotteries - they're pretty popular. Many people seem to like the idea of there being very rich people if there's a chance of themselves being one of them. (And some of the chances involved are rather tiny).
Would you ban lotteries ? Or would you agree that there is nothing morally wrong with lotteries as such.
Note also that in making your well-worn analogy you're implicitly putting forward the idea that there are pre-existing souls who get incarnated into bodies at random (?at the moment of conception?). If it's unfair that some get born into circumstances of desperate poverty, then there has to be an entity - a self or soul independent of those circumstances - to whom it is unfair.
If I hold that it is unfair that some animals get to be born as apex predators, whilst others are born into prey species, I implicitly assert the existence of some form of pre-existing animal soul to whom either fate is conceivable. On the principle of "should implies can".
Are you really arguing for such a metaphysics ?
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Re: Are there eternal moral truths?
Oh but it does.EricPH wrote: ↑July 31st, 2022, 6:26 pmMy statement does not need justifying.Sculptor1 wrote: ↑July 31st, 2022, 4:46 pm"Should be"? Why? Please justify your statement on grounds you see as "eternal"!EricPH wrote: ↑July 30th, 2022, 6:43 pm Eternal moral truths should be rooted in the same justice for all people. We allow about nine million people to die every year from starvation, when rich countries squander billions on slimming products. About 700 million people live on less than two dollars a day. About eight hundred million people go to bed hungry. Yet in the civilised world we waste about 750 million tons of food a year.
Do we have a duty or obligation to share our wealth with those less fortunate?
Maybe definitively. But so what? You have not justified why "everyone" ought to expect the same justice.Justice can only be justice, if the same justice is applied to everyone.
And you pretend that your words need no justification.
True people are hungry and others are rich.Would you think it fair and just if you were one of the 700 million people on Earth living on a couple of dollars a day? There are children in these situations who have the ability to learn the same as us, but they don't have the chance of an education. They will go to bed hungry.
You are just stating facts. Where's the justification?
What's your point?
Like me, you are probably lucky enough to earn more than thirty dollars a day, that puts us in the top 15% of the richest people on Earth. We can't claim we are any better than those living on two dollars a day. We can only claim to be more lucky and fortunate because of our birth. Justice should not depend on luck.
You are still applying an unspoken assumption, which is not justified.
Defend your position!
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Re: Are there eternal moral truths?
Both predators and prey die, so dying is not the problem, it is how we live.
Some people will always gamble, banning lotteries would not achieve anything. Some form of gambling would take its place.Would you ban lotteries ?
It is the people who can least afford to gamble and lose money who need protecting.Or would you agree that there is nothing morally wrong with lotteries as such.
There are enough resources to feed the world, we can't seem to share them. We like to call ourselves civilised, but do we deserve that label when e allow so many to live at starvation levels.If it's unfair that some get born into circumstances of desperate poverty, then there has to be an entity - a self or soul independent of those circumstances - to whom it is unfair.
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Re: Are there eternal moral truths?
If two people are doing the same job, one should get paid ten times more than the other. Is that your idea of justice?
Industrialists know if they have a plant in the US, they might have to pay their workers $20 per hour. If they go to a third world country, they can get the same job done for a dollar or so an hour. This is unjust to the US worker who is not employed, it is unjust to the workers in China on a dollar an hour. The only people who benefit are the shareholders who do not work to earn their money,
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Re: Are there eternal moral truths?
I'm not making any claims about justice.
I am asking for clarification as to why ANY claim of justice might be an "eternal moral truth". As yet I have heard nothing in support of such an idea.
And you point is?
Industrialists know if they have a plant in the US, they might have to pay their workers $20 per hour. If they go to a third world country, they can get the same job done for a dollar or so an hour. This is unjust to the US worker who is not employed, it is unjust to the workers in China on a dollar an hour. The only people who benefit are the shareholders who do not work to earn their money,
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Re: Are there eternal moral truths?
Sculptor is quite right to query the word 'eternal'. Neither Eric nor I have been discussing eternal truths.Sculptor1 wrote: ↑July 31st, 2022, 4:46 pm"Should be"? Why? Please justify your statement on grounds you see as "eternal"!EricPH wrote: ↑July 30th, 2022, 6:43 pm Eternal moral truths should be rooted in the same justice for all people. We allow about nine million people to die every year from starvation, when rich countries squander billions on slimming products. About 700 million people live on less than two dollars a day. About eight hundred million people go to bed hungry. Yet in the civilised world we waste about 750 million tons of food a year.
Do we have a duty or obligation to share our wealth with those less fortunate?
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Re: Are there eternal moral truths?
Strawman.
Please refer to the points I have already made, and justify how your claims are "eternal moral truth".
Please note that since there are many other moral claims concerning the same area of justice which do not include your solutions, you might want to try harder.
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Re: Are there eternal moral truths?
Eric was saying something about wages in different parts of the world and shareholders exploiting that fact.
True enough.
However there are many justifications for this practice, and some would also argue those moral justifications are eternal.
Some would hold that in a Darwinian perspective, the only moral justification is the competition for wages and that shareholders have the right to benefit, whilst workers have the right to get what wages are available or look elsewhere.
Others might simply say that might is right and that the powerful have the right to act as they can and has they see fit to their own benefit.
Others still would argue for benefits of society to be bestowed on the basis of merit, either in mental capacity, academic achievement, or capacity to do a job of work.
Given the widespread absence of the sort of moral system desired by Eric, I think his suggestions that such moral reflections are worthy considerations in a thread which asks about "eternal moral truths", is wrong.
In the long history of life before the emergence of humans, I think a more likely candidate would be survival of the fittest.
But nothing I say here ought to be taken as in any way promoting any moral code.
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Re: Are there eternal moral truths?
If we were to come up with a moral truth, would it be fair to say it should benefit mankind as a whole? To my way of thinking, survival of the fittest leads to an immoral truth for mankind. Wealth and power aid the fittest for survival, so the ones with the biggest guns and greatest wealth benefit the most. They take what they want, at the expense of others. Hitler's Germany strived to be the fittest.
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Re: Are there eternal moral truths?
Why?
Even were I to give that to you, many would argue that survival of the fittest IS to the benefit of all mankind.
Hitler's Germany was proven to NOT be the fittest.To my way of thinking, survival of the fittest leads to an immoral truth for mankind. Wealth and power aid the fittest for survival, so the ones with the biggest guns and greatest wealth benefit the most. They take what they want, at the expense of others. Hitler's Germany strived to be the fittest.
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Re: Are there eternal moral truths?
It's hard to say which are the fittest. True to say those who amass the most power and/or wealth, often by means of violence, are the best at surviving and procreating in the short term. However , bearing in mind that men can't live without the rest of the biosphere, the universalising message of Jesus of Nazareth and others is the best long term principle. Benefits must be made available to all and approximately equally distributed among all including the natural environment which is (to say the least !)a resource needed by all.EricPH wrote: ↑August 3rd, 2022, 7:13 pmIf we were to come up with a moral truth, would it be fair to say it should benefit mankind as a whole? To my way of thinking, survival of the fittest leads to an immoral truth for mankind. Wealth and power aid the fittest for survival, so the ones with the biggest guns and greatest wealth benefit the most. They take what they want, at the expense of others. Hitler's Germany strived to be the fittest.
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Re: Are there eternal moral truths?
..and that is far from the only example. The British Empire also strove to be "the fittest", as did all the other Empires, back to the Romans and before. We have a long history of such things, it seems.EricPH wrote: ↑August 3rd, 2022, 7:13 pmIf we were to come up with a moral truth, would it be fair to say it should benefit mankind as a whole? To my way of thinking, survival of the fittest leads to an immoral truth for mankind. Wealth and power aid the fittest for survival, so the ones with the biggest guns and greatest wealth benefit the most. They take what they want, at the expense of others. Hitler's Germany strived to be the fittest.
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