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From: cja@lzwi.UUCP (C.E.JACKSON)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Hitler and Moral Relativism (reply to Byron Howes)
Message-ID: <131@lzwi.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-May-85 17:33:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: lzwi.131
Posted: Wed May  8 17:33:23 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 9-May-85 03:31:58 EDT
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> In article <5504@utzoo.UUCP> laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes:
> >Thus you have a morality based on ``the things that increase stability and
> >the ability of a society to survive'' are good -- and (presumably) ``the
> >things that decrease stability and decrease the ability of the society to
> >survive'' are evil.

> Not so, or at least not *absolutely* so.  If functional traits can be
> deemed "good," they can only be classified that way from within the society
> under scrutiny at a particular point in time.  The same holds for dysfunc-
> tional traits being labelled as "evil."  Personally, I do not see the
> charismatic leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini as a "good" thing, though it
> stabilizes Islamic Iranian Society.  I'm looking at it from a particular
> cultural bias, however.

Stablizes Iranian society? How? An entire generation of Iranian young men, 
most of the educated middle class and virtually all educated women
are being either killed or oppressed.
I think Laura is talking about survival over the long term, & 6 or 7
years is hardly the long term.

> When I was much younger (in the days when we called moral relativism
> "situational ethics") I used to engage in thought experiments where I
> would envision social/cultural systems wherein things thought of as "moral"
> could be considered "immoral" and vice-versa.  Something very close to
> the situation you describe (random murder) is hypothesizeable in a
> society very overpopulated with respect to available resources -- your own
> lifeboat situation!  
Random murder? No, I don't think any society would find that functional over 
the long run. In most societies where the resources are limited, those who
are very young, disabled, old or women/girls are either killed or left to 
die--think of some Eskimo populations, China or ancient Sparta. 
> 						Byron C. Howes

C. E. Jackson
...ihnp4!lznv!cja (for reasons too silly to explain,the address above 
[lzwi] is incorrect--don't use it)