I'll address Jubes's questions:

Should we be allowed to judge wether this is right or wrong, given that we have grown up in different cultures, with different customs and morals?

We can judge it according to our own beliefs, but we shouldn't necessarily act upon them.

Furthermore, is one Ethic possible since there are so many culture, so many customs, and so many different religions and morals?

No, despite what certain childish forumgoers might think. People are different enough that people can never agree on this sort of thing. Look at gun control, abortion, etc.

Has there ever been a situation where someone has acted according to their "moral responsibility" and done something that would by this society's standards be considered Unethical?

Well, for years the USSR was considered "evil." Now that it's been eliminated, Russia, its core nation, faces serious economic problems.

------------------
Frank's Home Page
"He's Satan. And not the good kind. I hate him. If there is a god, I hope Jebus has him fry in hell." - DT, in reference to me

And yes, I also believe that we should not pay for medical benefits for people who are sick as the result of a self-damaging behaviour (not including mental illness). It's what we call 'tough for them.'

Re: Jubes Q's: I'll agree with Frank on point one.

I say that a common value CAN be found, but it's something very simplistic, like the example I put above, and it will always be conditional.

As for point three... I would think a good example might be Oskar Schindler. By the common thought of his time, nation, and people, what he was doing in helping the Jews escape was wrong. But he saw it a different way.

------------------
"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi

But, since we don't appear to be interested in that...
Universal ethical principles? Yes, tenetively. Though that raises the huge issue of how much of our behavior is dictated by biology. (Quite a bit, or not much, depending on whom you ask.)

Unfortunatly First, you step on you rown argument barely a line later when you say:

"For instance: Surgery hurts. But it can be necessary to prevent death (Christian Scientist claptrap notwithstanding). Therefore it is not wrong."

In one sentance you made a comment which could "hurt" Christians, was "unnecessary", and, also, untrue.

You then step on your own argument with:

"By the above logic, voluntary euthanasia is not wrong, as it is essentially self-harm intended to prevent a greater suffering. Nonconsensual euthanasia, however, would be wrong (unless previously specified as the desire of the individual in question.)"

So your saying that people should be allowed to commit euthanasia, as long as they are not Christians? Or is it because you think that refusing surgery that could save you is silly?

Okay, you needed a heart transplant. there wasn't one available. You were going to die. Except that science was now able to clone you. Suppose they grew a clone, but without a head. Would you take that clones heart? Some people woulnd't, just because the very idea would be abhorant to them. People who refuse surgery feel the same way about being cut open.

Different religions have different ethics the same way different cultures have. You can't say "I understand that, even if I don't agree" in a situation with different cultural ethics, but then not in a situation with different religious ethics.

You can't condem an entire religion for the acts of a few people. You blabber on about the Crusades and Whitchunts a fair bit. Still, I don't see you slagging off Germany for the actions of the Nazi party.

You First, are at times a religious racist (if there is such a thing).

------------------
"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi

Germany, as a society, is not responsible for the Nazi acts. Germany has repudiated and condemned Nazism and their acts. Germany is a country and an ethnicity. Nazism is a value system and a lifestyle choice. Those Nazis that remain (NeoNazis, Aryan Nation, etc.) are likewise reviled by me (Oh, I could tell you my lurid fantasies of breaking up a KKK rally with a hideous display of force, but what would be the point?)

Dissimilarly, Christianity has yet to fully repudiate its actions during the Inquisition and Crusades and Witchhunts (although I hear the pope may be taking steps in that area.) As followers of the same value system that gave rise to the atrocities, they are as responsible as those who continue to follow OTHER value systems that have had similar effects.

My intent when I criticise is not to condemn today's Christians (Indeed, my initial statement did nothing of the sort), but to remind people that it happened once, and that there are still those among them who would like nothing better than to see it happen again.

I don't care if Christian Scientists refuse surgery for themselves. That's fine, from my standpoint, as it constitutes evolution in action. It's when they refuse surgery for people who aren't being allowed to choose for themselves (their children) that I get annoyed. because that IS harming others.

------------------
"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi

quote:

---

Christianity has yet to fully repudiate its actions during the Inquisition and Crusades and Witchhunts (although I hear the pope may be taking steps in that area.) As followers of the same value system that gave rise to the atrocities, they are as responsible as those who continue to follow OTHER value systems that have had similar effects.

---

???

I hereby repudiate the actions of all the strangers (now dead, unless there's a few immortals I'm unaware of) who "justified" reprehensible actions and atrocities during the Crusades, the Inquisistion, and Whichhunts, by invoking the name of "Christianity".

I liken those actions to those of a cop who, upon stopping some poor fool who is not familiar with the law, decides to collect a "fine" on the spot, rather than writing a ticket. Even when corruption is entrenched, that does not make it legitimate, nor is it justified. When people do evil, they generally try to rationalize their actions so they don't have to admit what they did was wrong. The halls of infamy ring with the echoes of "It's not my fault!" and "You made me do it!" The "Church" (both Catholic and otherwise) has done a lot of things that had nothing to do with right or wrong, but plenty to do with ensuring their power base remained uneroded.

As far as immutable ethics are concerned, I believe some do exist. In the case of Eskimo hospitality, for instance, it might be ethical for him to offer the "services" of his wife, but individually, for me, it would not be ethical to take him up on his offer. For him, he is only offering everything he has to show his hospitality. For me, however, he is offering something that, from my perspective, only he has an unquestionable right to (of course, she has a co-equal right to him, but that's another issue).

From another perspective, it's customary to perform "female circumcision" in some cultures. If all viewpoints are equally valid, then it's perfectly acceptable for the males of that culture to ensure their females remain sexually unaware and subordinate to the males in their society. If you disagree, then perhaps we must admit the possibility that there is, in fact, a universal set of rules for ethical conduct.

Since each of us has a vested interest in his or her own ethical standards, it may well be impossible to come to an agreement on what the universal set of rules might be. After all, if there is a universal ethical rule set, it's very likely that it may condemn something you're fond of doing.

--Baloo

------------------
"Helping Tomorrow Feel Superior by Scoffing at Yesterday."
--James Lileks [Motto of The Institute of Official Cheer.]
http://www.geocities.com/cyrano_jones.geo/

What I mean to say is that those who currently follow the ideology of an organization which in the past has done bad things, have a moral responsibility to:

1: Own up and admit to the fact that these things were done. Or, if you subscribe to the belief (dubious, I think) that such acts were carried out under the 'guise' of Christianity, that they were ALLOWED to happen by the 'good' people.

2: Commit, personally, to insuring that such things never happen again, if they can help it. This means standing up to persons in your church who act as though that is what they want. You know some, doubtless. It seems that everyone does. If you don't, there's always Pat Robertson.

I do not insist that these things be remembered because I hate Christians. I don't. I insist these things be remembered for the same reasons that the Jews who survived WWII insist the holocaust be remembered. So that noone ever tries anything like it again. Ever.

"First they came for the Jews, and I did not stand up, because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the homosexuals, and I did not stand up because I was not a homosexual.
Then they came for the Romany, and I did not stand up because I was not a Romany.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not stand up because I was not Catholic.
And then they came for me... and there was no one left to stand up for me." -- A Survivor of the camps, I don't know who.

So I stand NOW, and I will not be moved.
Because I don't want those lines ever to be drawn again. And you don't want it either.

------------------
"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi

------------------
Dane

If something harms, or impinges on the rights of, someone, it is unethical.

Contradictions occur when peoples interests are in direct opposition.ie. one can't always make an ethically correct decision. That's the way of nature.

------------------
Try not.
Do.
Or Do not.
There is no try.

But that's hardly the be all and end all of the topic, I think.

Yecch.

------------------
"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi

Of course, that's the theory as originally laid out. It's been modified quite a bit since then, most notably by John Stuart Mill, who would refute such an example as I just laid out by arguing that, in the long run, harming innocents is self-destructive behavior.

Drinking, smoking, drugging, carousing...

------------------
"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi