Moral Beliefs - poll

[magister343]

I too prefer (Christain) Virtue Ethics.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind; and love your neighbor as (you should) yourself.

I would call that divine and it touches on the golden, along with many other thoughts and feelings. It exemplifies my belief. It replaced the old testament and I would like to call it The New Testament, though there is much more to it. I do not want it to be confused with The New Testament of the Bible that consists of Matthew through Revelations, though that is where it is found by those searching for it.

Final Answer: New Testament

How do verbatim quotations from the old testament constitute a replacement of the old testament?

It may be worth noting that most of the old testamant was addressed very specifically to Israelites. Even the Ten Commandments begins by addressing the commands to those who have been brought out of Egypt. Judaism has long taught that the Law of Moses was never means for gentiles to follow, and that non-Jews who follow the much simpler Seven Noahide Laws out of love for their creator are just as righteous as a high priest of Israel who has never erred in keeping all his commandments, and just as worthy of speaking directly to God.



This is by no means necessarily divine command in the sense used in the divine command theory of right and wrong. In that theory, something is right or wrong purely because of God deciding/declaring it so. Good and evil become completely arbitrary, consisting of subjective views of the divinity being forced upon his creations on a whimsy. I prefer to reject this view, and say that the Lord has very good reasons for deciding what is right and wrong. It may be best for us to go by divine commands because they are issued by someone with an infinitely better understanding of why something is right or wrong, but it is not the command in and of itself that makes it right or wrong.

 

[aeon]

I chose:

• Existentialism
• Hedonism/egoism
• Moral relativism
• Nihilism
• Utilitarianism
• Objectivism/Strong Libertarianism

cheers,
Ian

 

[LikeAGlassAsterisk]

I voted for the golden rule, but I prefer a socially and historically sensitive, pluralistic but non-relativistic form of virtue ethics.

It seems to me that character is important to morality, and thus there needs to be a focus on virtues, but that these virtues are not context independent but related to the forms of life that we are thrown into. Further, the forms of life and practises that we find ourselves thrown into put conflicting concerns onto us, and these conflicting concerns are not necessarily a matter of one being truly important and the others of lesser or no importance (although this is sometimes the case) but rather often the result of the fact that values are incommensurable. I don't believe in the unity of the virtues or any other doctrine that expresses the same idea.

 

[SPQR]

I chose the following:

• Divine Command
• Existentialism
• Golden Rule
• Moral Relativism
• Utilitarianism

I'll explain myself, because a few are seemingly contradictory. I chose divine command, because of my religious beliefs. The golden rule naturally follows since it's part of what I believe in, but I also chose existentialism, because I subscribe to the Kierkegaardian type of existentialism, that states religion is futile to try and prove, because otherwise it would cease to be a faith. It's a bit more complicated than what my clumsy writing lets on, but it's about there.

I also chose moral relativism, because sometimes the good book just doesn't cover everything. It's impossible to know for example, whether or not pirating software is wrong by just reading the Bible. I mean, it says don't steal, but piracy's more than just about stealing. Oh sure, most people just take the goods and run, but piracy's also about personal freedoms and whether or not current business practices really should be encouraged. Should a teenager really be fined thousands of dollars for each song, of which most people never download one or two, when he or she clearly doesn't have the resources? Even when most of the profits end up with the company and not the artist? You could make a case advocating for it, is all I'm trying to say here. What does one do when the good is mixed in with the bad?

I also chose utilitarianism, because what is commanded and what we should impose upon us and being happy aren't all necessarily mutually exclusive subjects.