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Originally Posted by Christian Nelson  thou shalt not murder, which is different, than thou shalt not kill. |
Different, but not much less conclusory. Defining murder is no mean task: take a glance through the history of criminal law should you doubt that.
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Originally Posted by Christian Nelson So, with a reasonable approach to the scripture, one can find a rational message. |
Ah, excellent! All you need to do is point me to a concise, objective definition of what constitutes a "reasonable" approach, so I'll know when I'm taking one, and we'll be all set.
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Originally Posted by Christian Nelson I do whole heartedly concur with the idea of not wishing to have the use of force implemented in religeous practice. |
You've misread me: behind every law is some set of irrational beliefs, backed up by a host of men with guns. While ethics, religious and otherwise, have a broader application than societal governance... we live in a free society. The only time ethics constrains our free will is when it is implemented by force, under guise of law. So, I consider this narrow type of ethics and the justification thereof to be the most interesting for discussion.
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Originally Posted by Christian Nelson That is why I like to be able to read for myself the belief a given individual espouses, and justification for why they think things ought to be a certain way. |
As I've said, I find those books to be long on generalized statements of Ought (beliefs such as thou shalt not murder) and very, very short on the justification for why things ought to be that way. Which you get to below, so I'll skip there.
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Originally Posted by Christian Nelson What do you think of the "self evident truths" in the constitution?
In my mind certain things like the ablility to defend one's self and property seem naturally to be expected in a good society. for example.
Yet, they don't really point to any real thing other than that they hold it to be self evident that our creator (such as he is) has endowed us with inalienable rights. |
And because we, as a society, have elevated that text to the status of Authoritative Statement of Beliefs... it need not justify itself. Before they wrote the Bill of Rights, there was a great deal argument about why the things they ultimately codified were Good Things. In these debates, the principle of free speech (for example) was defended on numerous grounds, both utilitarian (it is good to have free speech because it, in net, causes other good things to happen and/or prevents bad things from happening) and deontological (free speech is good in and of itself, regardless of what it causes). It is this sort of debate that I think necessary before we enshrine any given "ought" statement as desirable, much less as law. But what sort of debate is this, and how is it ultimately different from what you feel in your gut, you seem to ask:
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Originally Posted by Christian Nelson see what you mean by wanting to hear a reason why x is right, and y is wrong..
Is my inner most feeling of percieved right and wrong explenation any better?
I guess I don't think it is, so really is there any way to explain it that is valid to you? |
Ultimately, I want to hear an answer to "why" every time an ought statement is offered to justify an ethical norm... until we reach common ground on a (probably very broad) core irrational, unjustified belief (or, more likely, several of them). If I can rationally work backwards, using those accepted unjustified belief(s) as my granted premises, and arrive at your narrow ethical norm... then I consider it justified. An example may be useful:
You should be locked up, because killing a man who was stealing your Vector is wrong. (note that I do not actually agree with that statement, but we can work with it as a hypothetical)
Why? Because that's murder and murder is always wrong. (I'm omitting the legal definitions of murder from our purely ethical discussion)
Why? Because killing a human being without a very good reason is wrong. Why do you say I killed him without a very good reason: the S.O.B. was taking my VECTOR! But your Vector isn't a good enough reason to kill him; his life is worth more than your Vector. Why is it worth more than my Vector? You do know they don't make them anymore; it may not be replaceable! But human life is unique and very valuable. Even if you lose a Vector, that's not a reason to kill him and so you're a murderer. Well, I won't make you explain why his life is necessarily more valuable than my irreplaceable property. But he didn't need the Vector (unless he was HellsGate, then I concede he had an insatiable need for the Vector), so he chose to take what he knew was not his. Isn't that choice bad and couldn't that be a good enough reason to kill him? No, because even if he does bad things he still doesn't deserve to die for it. Really? What if he broke into my home at night with a knife to steal my Vector... that's bad, and I know I could kill him then, and it wouldn't be murder. So why is one thing bad enough to kill him and another not bad enough to prevent my being a murderer? Now you're getting away from the point. If he's in your home at night with a knife, it doesn't matter whether he's taking your Vector or just borrowing a cup of sugar. Ok, so it sounds like unless he's threating my life I should not kill him, because life is the most precious thing we mortals have, without which nothing else is worth a warm cup of spit. I can agree with that basic premise! Thank God. Now go come up with a proof that demonstrates why, if you accept that life if the most precious thing a mortal has, killing a man for stealing your Vector is murder. I'm tired of explaining the blindingly obvious to you and am going to sleep.
This is an amusing, though not very illustrative, example. It isn't very illustrative because there's really not many steps involved: we all share (except for me, who thinks it perfectly moral to kill someone who steals my Vector--that's just mean, and I believe in punishing on voluntary malice more than on what harm was ultimately inflicted... and I really like Vectors) a core, though fundamentally irrational, belief that human life is almost uniquely valuable. If you want a trickier example, with a lot more steps between "you ought" and a shared core belief justifying that statement consider the following exchange:
You ought to be locked up for murder because you shot a man (who had a knife and was in your house at night for purposes totally unknown to you) in the back of the head with your .45 when you had the drop on him from a good eight feet away, and you didn't even have the decency to let him know you were there and ask him nicely to surrender.