#moral relativity

[evilhorse]

“Good” and “bad” are meaningless to me.

(Superman Volume 6 #33)

[yesterdays-xkcd]

It's science!

Moral Relativity [Explained]

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

You want to know about the problem of evil? My answer to the problem of evil is this: There is no problem of evil in an atheist’s universe because there is no evil in an atheist’s universe. Since there is no God, there is no absolute moral standard, and nothing is wrong. The torture of little children is not wrong in an atheist’s universe. It may be painful, but it is not wrong. It is morally wrong in a theistic universe, and therefore, there is a problem of evil of perhaps the psychological or emotional sort, but philosophically the answer to the problem of evil is you don’t have an absolute standard of good by which to measure evil in an atheist’s universe. You can only have that in a theistic universe, and therefore, the very posing of the problem presupposes my world view, rather than his own. God has a good reason for the evil that He plans or allows. - Greg Bahnsen: The Great Debate: Does God Exist?

[sometimesrosy]

Yeah the only real innocents in MW to me were children. But there were quite a few of them, so while I agree that it was justified to kill all of the other people, was the cost of taking those children’s lives right? That’s where wrestling with morality comes into play for me. How many innocent children’s lives are you willing to sacrifice for the greater good? Is there ever a point where the collateral damage of children dying is okay or justified? If there is, then how many is it okay?

Did they have a choice, though? That was the only weapon Clarke had. It was the innocent children or the innocent everyone else. Because the delinquents were ENTIRELY innocent. First they were kidnap victims. They were also held prisoner. And then they were tortured and killed.

So. If you want to talk about the cost of innocent lives, you have to then weigh the innocent lives of the delinquents with the innocent lives of children. Who DID actually take blood treatment even if they probably didn’t know what it meant. 

Would sparing the children have been more righteous if it meant the innocent teenagers were tortured and killed and consumed????

And you know what? You don’t even seem to be considering that the delinquents are innocent victims of their captors. They’re almost all under 18, to boot. 

And they WEREN’T collateral damage. They were the targeted victims. Also TORTURE. 

Do you think it would be morally righteous to save children whose lives are dependent upon killing other people, but torturing and killing innocent older children in order to set those blood reliant children free? Thus supporting a society, a WHOLE SOCIETY, who thought it was their birthright to use other human beings like cattle?? The whole society was evil. And those children would then be brought up to support it. 

Because that was the choice. Since Cage refused donations. Which would have saved everyone. And they could THEN have sorted out the “innocent” from the culpable, and worked to change the world for the better. 

What were we supposed to do?

Die. 

It’s CAGE who made the choice. 

This was not a case of moral relativism, where everyone is the good guy when you look at it from their point of view. Cage’s point of view was I WANT TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD AND TORTURE PEOPLE WHILE I DO IT. For my people.

Bellarke’s pov was, I need to save my people from being tortured and killed and stop these people from torturing and killing any more people. 

NOT THE SAME. NOT EQUAL. Good guys vs Bad guys. The good guys had to do bad things to stop worse things from happening. And it broke them. Killing all those grounders made most of MW think they had a right to do so. 

[peachy-keen-glam-queen]

Not to get too controversial on main or whatever but I really think that fundamentalism and refusal to consider ethical relativity in any form is the root of all social evils, thanks for coming to my sidewalk rant.

[kingdomofthelogos]

We live in an era that teaches people to live “your truth:” however, we must ask the question of whether or not it is even possible for everyone to live “their truth.” There is no magic rule in the cosmos that demands every individual’s personal disposition be true or even accurate. 

Moreover, there is no rule that says it is even possible for everyone to live “their truth.” There are some people who have a personal truth that motivates them to destroy others. Moral relativism is nothing more than a vehicle for chaos and nihilism.

This is the problem with the “coexist” philosophy, that such a philosophy can’t exist with out putting limits on certain worldviews. Worldviews can only exist with one another if such worldviews lack a component telling them to destroy the competing worldviews. 

This is why we need transcendental truth. Truth that does not originate with mankind and is not contingent upon mankind in order to be truth. People who say they are rejecting nothing, are actually rejecting the most meaningful parts of the human soul. 

[gouachevalier]

It is easy enough for modern people to dismiss the Crusades as morally repugnant or cynically evil. Such judgments, however, tell us more about the observer than the observed. They are based on uniquely modern (and therefore, Western) values. If, from the safety of our modern world, we are quick to condemn the Medieval Crusader, we should be mindful that he would be just as quick to condemn us. Our infinitely more destructive wars waged for the sake of political and social ideologies would, from his view, be lamentable wastes of human life. In both societies, the medieval and the modern, people fight for what is most dear to them. That is a fact of human nature that is not so changeable.

Thomas F. Madden, The New Concise History Of The Crusades, AD 1999

[sometimesrosy]

I was wondering what your thoughts are on what Clarke was hoping for when Spacekru, specifically Bellamy, returned? Poor babygirl deserves better :(

I think a major part of the story of Clarke and Madi AND spacekru (and wonkru) was that Clarke had told Madi so many stories of her friends, made them such amazing heroes, who saved the world, were total badasses, and fought monsters, that when they came back, it was supposed to be a joyous reunion. 

But it was a war, right away. 

Yes it was still Clarke and Bellamy against the bad guys, but this time, Bellamy used negotiation instead of guns. A mug instead of annihilation. Right? So right away, Bellamy did live up to her expectations. He was keeping Madi safe. Everyone was saved. He was home. 

Then things start to get tricky. Bellamy’s plans work perfectly, until they open the bunker and find horrifying death cults and ¾ of the survivors already dead. Bellamy doesn’t see it yet, he gets his joyous reunion with Octavia, but Octavia is not the same, and instead of reuniting with Clarke with a hug, it is a handshake, the greeting between leaders/rivals/warriors. 

They fairy tale that was told has gotten complicated. Diyoza who never expected a fairytale immediately gets that and puts Wonkru into “danger” category. Oh she put them all into danger category already, but she was willing to see what happened next. And what happened next was, nope, steal the doctor, kill the hostage taker and his girlfriend, and kill wonkru. 

So here’s Clarke tryin to figure out what’s going on with Wonkru, and Bellamy is with her, and they are working together. Only Octavia seems to be against Bellamy. Wonkru is irrationally devoted to Octavia. This is NOT a fairy tale, the only thing living up to her imagination is Bellamy… and THEN the revelation of Echo. In which she learns that Bellamy is all she dreamed he would be… BUT HE IS NOT HERS. 

So she is gutted. 

But let me ask you this…. why does she deserve Bellamy? Does anyone DESERVE the relationship they want? She spent 6 years alone and  her relationship with him was all in her head. She had a relationship with him, in her head, and he was NOT a part of it. This is called an UNREQUITED love. It doesn’t matter that it was requited 6 years ago. She “died” and he moved on. This is a healthy way to live, and if you think that Bellamy should have been miserable and grieving for six years and unable to move on from losing Clarke, because Clarke DESERVED Bellamy, then what you are saying is that Bellamy DESERVED to suffer without hope of happiness for six years.

I can’t agree with that.

Do you mean “deserve” that way? Probably not. But people in fandom use it ALL the time to say that their faves deserve some sort of storyline in which all good things come to them.

I guess there’s definitely a type of story where the heroes always get their just rewards, where they WIN everything they want because they are the good guys.

This is not that type of story. The “good guys” are often just as bad as the bad guys. Or maybe the bad guys are just as good as the good guys. 

I mean, Clarke sacrificed herself for spacekru. But Dante sacrificed himself for MW. Does that make him a good guy? Clarke wanted to save her people against the unjust Mount Weather… but so did Diana Sydney. Clarke did what she had to for a better, more peaceful life for her people, but so did ALIE. 

People say that this show is advocating moral relativity, and says that doing evil in the name of good is GOOD, but I actually argue that it says the opposite. It PRESENTS characters who believe in moral relativity, who EXPLICITLY say that as long as your motives are pure, the evil you does won’t stain you, but when we follow their path to its end, those people are always not only destroyed, but ALSO lead to the destruction of their own people. Diana Sydney. Dante Wallace. Lxa. Pike. Jaha. MAYBE Octavia, we’ll see if she can pull it out, or if her people WERE destroyed, but saved at the last minute by BELLAMY, who has IN CANON broken the cycle of violence and chosen a different way.

This is the SAME Bellamy who, in season 1, told Clarke that what they did to survive didn’t define them. WHICH IS MORAL RELATIVITY. BELLAMY was nearly destroyed by this concept…. which is connected to the idea of DESERVING. “I mean well, so I am good, so I deserve to win and be rewarded.” By season 5, BECAUSE of Clarke’s influence on his life, Bellamy has grown to be the hero she always saw in him, and learned to do what was right, not JUST what was best for his people. 

But, no. I do not believe Clarke deserves better. Do I WANT her to be accepted and loved? Yes. Does she deserve it? No more than Echo does. She’s actually caused MORE harm than Echo, even while wanting to save people. I don’t think the intentions matter.

Clarke is living in a world that she created. It’s a world that happened because of her choices. It isn’t always good. A lot of people were harmed. Sometimes when she chose “the right thing” she hurt the people closest to her. A lot actually. Did they deserve that pain? Did Monty and Harper deserve to get left off that list? Did Octavia deserve to have the door closed on her? Did Raven deserve to have her love destroyed? No. But she did all those things because she thought they were the right thing to do. And then when she betrayed them in season 5, no, she was not even thinking about what the right thing to do was, just about saving Madi, and so she sacrificed them ALL. So you might think she deserves to be forgiven for the pain she causes people while she’s out saving the world. But where does that leave the people she hurt along the way? 

What do they deserve?

Here’s the problem with “Deserving.” It generally always means that someone else DOESN’T deserve something. I am good. I am the hero. I deserve good things. Therefore, whoever is not good/hero/me doesn’t get it. We see the same thing in stanning and fandom, demanding our character/ship/storyline because we deserve it.

This is the basis of entitlement. In a simple story of good and evil, it works, because the world is simple and there are no gray areas. In the real world, and this show, it doesn’t work. 

Clarke being deserving of forgiveness without WORKING to make up for how she’s hurt people means that those people she hurt don’t deserve to be respected.

You saw that with Bellamy and Octavia. Octavia thought she was entitled to what she wanted, and to hurt Bellamy because he hurt her. And Bellamy agreed. This created a dysfunctional relationship. That’s what you’re saying you want when you say Clarke deserves better. You’re saying Clarke is entitled to things going her way, and no one else is. 

Sorry. I went off, because I’ve got a problem with the word “deserve.” Because unless we’re talking about human rights or an agreement that you make ahead of time, like a marriage or contract or job, I don’t think the world owes us anything. And in the story, if good people got what they deserved, there wouldn’t have been an apocalypse at all.