I know people - mostly at work - who resist the idea of absolute right and wrong, or absolute truth. It occurred to me today that they are still pretty tight on the word
justice, though. If someone pulls that right/wrong thing on you, you might return with "is there real justice and injustice, then?"
Doesn't CS Lewis use the "try pulling their chair out from underneath them as they're sitting down and see how they feel about absolutes then" analogy? I always liked that one.
ReplyDeleteTorture is absolutely wrong.
ReplyDeleteStarting wars is absolutely wrong.
I recall my Ethics teacher being pretty much a moral relativist (or situation ethicist, what's the diff) - but one day in class he uttered that there are some absolutes that hit the very core of one's conscience as repugnant and wrong, and cited Child Abuse ... to which everyone's head nodded in front of me. And so it is with the slaughter of innocents (especially babies) upon the birth of Jesus' account - and evil without measure.
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