cmac3721 Posted May 9, 2013 Posted May 9, 2013 Moral beliefs, in order to rise above mere opinion, must be applicable to everyone. There is no logically consistent way to say that Person A must do X, but Person Y must never do X. If an action is termed "good," then it must be good for all people. If I classify the concept "mammal" as "warm-blooded," then it must include all warm-blooded organisms – otherwise the concept is meaningless. The concept "good" must thus encompass the preferred behaviour for all people – not just "Orientals" or "Policemen" or "Americans." If it doesn’t, then it’s just an aesthetic or cultural penchant, like preferring hockey to football, and loses any power for universal prescription. Thus if it is "good" for a politician to use force to take money from you and give it to me, then it is also "good" for anyone else to do it. Because again, what person x does is not fine if person y does it. I mean, its fine you believe in that myth, but there are things that person x can and should do that person y cant due to say ..training and profession Police, doctors, pilots, soldiers, heavy equipment operators, vets, dentists, food inspectors, the list goes on and on things that person X can do, because of training and their job, that person y can't do.example: I cant go around pulling people over for traffic violations. I can't drive a back hoe down the street, I can't drive an 18 wheeler.
cherapple Posted May 9, 2013 Posted May 9, 2013 Part of your confusion may lie with the fact that it's "the argument from morality," not "the argument for morality." This is when people say something is "wrong" because they want it to be wrong, and they use morality as a manipulation to get you to self-attack and stop doing what they don't want you to do. They're arguing that your actions are morally wrong; however, they usually want to exempt themselves from the rule they're making.
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