Does absolute morality require a supernatural explanation?

[Kasz216]

KungKras said:

Kasz216 said:

KungKras said:

Dodece said:
@KungKras

What you are describing is to the letter the justification for Genocide, Slavery, Colonialism, Inquisitions, Misogyny, Pogroms, Terrorism, Ethnic Cleansing, Bigotry, Concentration Camp, Environmental Exploitation, and just about every war in the history of mankind. In other words you may need to rethink your positions on this question. I doubt you would care too much for your option if you were in the minority.

Since when were genocides justified by "The most abmount of people will benefit from this"?

It was always "Our people will benefit from this" that led to those things. Some colonialists didn't even think of the people in the lands they conquered as humans.

I fail to see the similarity. More human suffering and death = less moral, and more human well-being = more moral. Seems like a perfectly good definition to me.

Well for example.  Sterlyzing everyone who has a genetic disorder now will cause less suffering over the long term as nobody will be born with stuff like taysachs disease.

"For the greater good" allows for all sorts of attrocities against the individual.

If you want to take it to an individual plane, if those people do have kids, they are personally responsible for all the suffering of their children, and the generations after them. In that example though, there might be the third option of eventual gene therpay or other treatments that can appear with scientific progress. But I get what you mean, there is also the classic paradox of the hospital with one healthy man and four with severe organ failures, is it moral to kill the healthy man if his organs will allow the other four guys to live?

Such situations might be a flaw in my definition, but remember that the absolute morality championed by different churches is often used to commit even worse atrocities against individuals, for much more arbitrary reasons. I also think, since there can be an actual debate, with real world facts about what is more moral (IE best for the most people) it is the best definition so far. Winston Churchills famous quote of "Democracy is without a doubt the worst form of government, if you disregard all others" comes to mind.

Except again... not really.  You may not have covered this in history but these arguements have been made specifically due to these attrocities.  Including... the Holocaust.

Though also counting in general a huge number of horrfying eugentics experments that generally go unreported or forgotten and just outright unethical expierments on people in poorer countries paid by richer countries.

In general most attrocities you'd blame on a church also tended to have that kind of backing... and still does.

People who are against gay marriage aren't against it because some bearded guy from Jupiter doesn't like it, but because they believe it will have a negative effect on society that will lead to other things to happen that will ultimaitly cause way more pain and trouble for more people then would be accomplished via gay marriage.

 

Most religious moral codes are actually just community moral codes hidden within religion to make them a bit more likely to be followed.