Socrates Cafe, April
.
This month we gathered to consider the question of Morality.
Moral relativism was invoked in many languages. As was absolutism. As were Fyodor, Nietzsche, Gandhi, Camus, Hitler, and various deities and prophets. Several confused morality with contemporary righteousness and bible thumping. Societal influences and instinctual impulses were poked and prodded. Morality and Ethics were compared and contrasted. Semantics and ideas were bent, blunted, blurred and collected.
I said, To speak of morality, one must speak of immorality -- and of both in their rhetorical extremes.
The concensus replied: There is no such thing as evil. Said one woman, there are evil acts, but there is no such thing as an evil person.
Said another:
What do you call a person who makes shoes ?
A shoemaker, she replied.
Ah, he said.
--
Perhaps in our collective and rational eschewing of religion and mythology, we have also eschewed philosophy, imagination, and wisdom. But certainly not morality.
This month we gathered to consider the question of Morality.
Moral relativism was invoked in many languages. As was absolutism. As were Fyodor, Nietzsche, Gandhi, Camus, Hitler, and various deities and prophets. Several confused morality with contemporary righteousness and bible thumping. Societal influences and instinctual impulses were poked and prodded. Morality and Ethics were compared and contrasted. Semantics and ideas were bent, blunted, blurred and collected.
I said, To speak of morality, one must speak of immorality -- and of both in their rhetorical extremes.
The concensus replied: There is no such thing as evil. Said one woman, there are evil acts, but there is no such thing as an evil person.
Said another:
What do you call a person who makes shoes ?
A shoemaker, she replied.
Ah, he said.
--
Perhaps in our collective and rational eschewing of religion and mythology, we have also eschewed philosophy, imagination, and wisdom. But certainly not morality.
