RachelEllen
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2001
- Messages
- 1,363
bicker said:"Ultimate"??? Gosh now. I wouldn't say anything like that.
Ok, hopefully this isn't took annoying in a photo thread, 'cause it is interesting.
I used the word 'ultimate' in reponse to your assertion that there is 'nothing is illegal that isn't immoral.'
bicker said:Illegality does not itself make an action immoral. Rather, it is the common perspective of the immorality of the action that results in its illegality.
I find the above a bit inconsistant.
You seem to be saying that an action has an a priori moral dimension. But, that the law is perfectly reflective of this dimension. Is the law without flaw in reflecting the preexisiting morality? That's a rather hard position to support (IMHO). Or are you supporting a completely subjective morality. In which society, as voiced through the law, is creating what is moral or what is not.
Either way, it seems pretty 'ultimate.' If everything illegal is immoral, than, either, an action gains its immoral status from the law. Or, the law is trying to reflect our view of what is moral, and once that law is in place, being lawful always trumps other moral considerations. I would argue that trying to say that the latter is correct, but that the law is always, without failure, correct in what is moral, is simply a reductionist view of the former.
I hope I am understanding your view correctly. I just can't agree with it. I'm not sure where morality comes from (agnostic that I am), but I can't believe that it can change so drastically based on a governmental system. Would you extend your arguements to say that morality comes from the will of the people in a democracy, but the will of a king in a monarchy? Is it really morality, as most people use the term, that changes decade to decade, or simply mores. Can we not look back in time and judge slavery as wrong?


Now please don't ask me about the music on my iPod 
You are rationalizing why it is OKAY to roll through a stop sign b/c you have rationalized that no harm can result.