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Everyone finds for themselves what witness they must bear. If the OP feels an obligation to help transform social views of homosexuality, well that's their dut

Everyone finds for themselves what witness they must bear. If the OP feels an obligation to help transform social views of homosexuality, well that's their duty as they see it. Likewise those evangelicals who feel the need to bear witness to what Jesus has done for them. If they share a cab it could well be an exhausting ride for everybody but this is beside the point of their obligations as they seem them. We must all do the right as we see it. We should all strive to see the right as best we can, but at any moment must work with that vision we have. Doing what _you_ think wrong is wrong. Omitting what _you_ think right is wrong. Which brings us back to the OP's excellent point that expecting one's self to always meet one's own standard builds a sort of muscle, and leads to an undreamt of excellence.

deleted 14y ago
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gizzlon 14y ago
We must all do the right as we see it. [..] Doing what _you_ think wrong is wrong. Hmm.. this seems like a form of relativism. Are you implying the inverse as well: Doing what _you_ think right is right? How do you defend that if "right" for me happens to be walking around nude in public, or more extreme, shooting people that I disagree with?
- chernevik 14y ago
  It does seem so, doesn't it? But I couple it with a duty to always seek a better understanding of the right, and to a humility that appreciates you might be wrong. Moral principles are absolute and unchanging. But their _application_ is always subject to a context, and that context is often full of many different considerations of various weights. You may be of some Nudist religion but appreciate that your other duties require a prudent respect for the social requirement of clothing when earning the money required to meet those duties. If you believe something wrong and dangerous I will try to persuade you that you are _wrong_. I will try to persuade you to change your principles to better ones, or at least doubt yours enough to do nothing while you figure things out. But I won't try to persuade you to not live with integrity. If you believe in shooting people you disagree with, and I think you're actually likely to act on that, then I will act to stop you. Because I have a duty to the just and the innocent to protect them from people who believe stuff that crazy. But just because I oppose you doesn't mean I don't think you mean well, just that you're wrong and must be stopped.
  - EGreg 14y ago
    I think if you tried to name moral principles that are absolute and unchanging, you would mostly name principles from logic. For example, we should not punish an innocent man. But that's because it's a contradiction in terms.
  - wnight 14y ago
    What if the potential shooter was a parent on their way to rescue a child from a kidnapper? What if the shooter was a police officer and had merely lost their uniform in a comic mishap while chasing a vicious killer? If you try to stop someone who is looking to shoot someone they disagree with (regardless of their reasoning), presumably by calling in the police or other agents employing lethal force, you're ultimately just shooting people you disagree with by proxy. If you believed words were a better solution than violence you'd need to talk, and accept the results of that discussion, instead of drawing lines and deciding to perpetrate your own violence. Pacifists can't call the police or they're merely cowards.
- EGreg 14y ago
  I think the word "should" is properly a ternary relation If A wants B, then they should do C <=> If A does C and B doesn't happen, then it's not A's fault <=> If A does C and B doesn't happen, then any person Z (in the set of people we care about) who wants to appear reasonable should not blame A in a conversation about what happened. So really, "should" is defined in terms of expecting anyone who wants to be reasonable not to blame you. Many people think "should" is some absolute thing, such as "A should do C" regardless of what they want. It seems to me that absolute morality requires tons of adhoc exceptions and rules, and that relative morality gives a much more fitting description of what happens.
- icebraining 14y ago
  How do you defend that if "right" for me happens to be walking around nude in public, or more extreme, shooting people that I disagree with? The fact that is right for you to do something doesn't mean it's not right for me and others to stop you from doing it. Since they're relative, there's no inconsistency. Incidentally, I find it amusing how you just implicitly judged whole societies (where walking around nude in public is/was the standard) as being morally in the wrong. I've always found the moral absolutism argument to have a disagreeable taste of superiority.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

gizzlon 14y ago

We must all do the right as we see it. [..] Doing what _you_ think wrong is wrong. Hmm.. this seems like a form of relativism. Are you implying the inverse as well: Doing what _you_ think right is right? How do you defend that if "right" for me happens to be walking around nude in public, or more extreme, shooting people that I disagree with?

chernevik 14y ago
It does seem so, doesn't it? But I couple it with a duty to always seek a better understanding of the right, and to a humility that appreciates you might be wrong. Moral principles are absolute and unchanging. But their _application_ is always subject to a context, and that context is often full of many different considerations of various weights. You may be of some Nudist religion but appreciate that your other duties require a prudent respect for the social requirement of clothing when earning the money required to meet those duties. If you believe something wrong and dangerous I will try to persuade you that you are _wrong_. I will try to persuade you to change your principles to better ones, or at least doubt yours enough to do nothing while you figure things out. But I won't try to persuade you to not live with integrity. If you believe in shooting people you disagree with, and I think you're actually likely to act on that, then I will act to stop you. Because I have a duty to the just and the innocent to protect them from people who believe stuff that crazy. But just because I oppose you doesn't mean I don't think you mean well, just that you're wrong and must be stopped.
- EGreg 14y ago
  I think if you tried to name moral principles that are absolute and unchanging, you would mostly name principles from logic. For example, we should not punish an innocent man. But that's because it's a contradiction in terms.
- wnight 14y ago
  What if the potential shooter was a parent on their way to rescue a child from a kidnapper? What if the shooter was a police officer and had merely lost their uniform in a comic mishap while chasing a vicious killer? If you try to stop someone who is looking to shoot someone they disagree with (regardless of their reasoning), presumably by calling in the police or other agents employing lethal force, you're ultimately just shooting people you disagree with by proxy. If you believed words were a better solution than violence you'd need to talk, and accept the results of that discussion, instead of drawing lines and deciding to perpetrate your own violence. Pacifists can't call the police or they're merely cowards.
EGreg 14y ago
I think the word "should" is properly a ternary relation If A wants B, then they should do C <=> If A does C and B doesn't happen, then it's not A's fault <=> If A does C and B doesn't happen, then any person Z (in the set of people we care about) who wants to appear reasonable should not blame A in a conversation about what happened. So really, "should" is defined in terms of expecting anyone who wants to be reasonable not to blame you. Many people think "should" is some absolute thing, such as "A should do C" regardless of what they want. It seems to me that absolute morality requires tons of adhoc exceptions and rules, and that relative morality gives a much more fitting description of what happens.
icebraining 14y ago
How do you defend that if "right" for me happens to be walking around nude in public, or more extreme, shooting people that I disagree with? The fact that is right for you to do something doesn't mean it's not right for me and others to stop you from doing it. Since they're relative, there's no inconsistency. Incidentally, I find it amusing how you just implicitly judged whole societies (where walking around nude in public is/was the standard) as being morally in the wrong. I've always found the moral absolutism argument to have a disagreeable taste of superiority.