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From: george@scirtp.UUCP (George Greene Jr.)
Newsgroups: soc.women,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Feminism and Abortion
Message-ID: <638@scirtp.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-Oct-86 22:26:51 EDT
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Posted: Mon Oct 13 22:26:51 1986
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Xref: linus soc.women:337 talk.religion.misc:520

I am sure that I am just as liberal as Robert Pease, but
here he is taking moral relativism *entirely* too far.
(This particular branch of the discussion also happens to belong
in talk.politics and talk.religion rather than here.)

Robert was (and I'm glad he was) trying to refute the following:

> >That is exactly my point in why we should base our decisions on what God
> >wants.

So Robert said,
> First of all, no one really KNOWS what "God" wants.  All we can do  is
> point  to something and say, "This indicates that God wants ta-da." If
> someone KNEW what "God" wanted then there would not be such  a  heated
> debate about "The TRUE Religion."

This was fine and dandy.
Then,
his victim continued,
> >Every person can make his or her decisions based on many different
> >elements.  Take the extreme example of Hitler who slaughtered the Jews
> >because he thought he was doing the right thing.  Everybody else thought
> >he was doing the wrong thing!

Then Robert replied:
> Hitler is not at issue here.  What is at issue is using the idea  that
> "I  know what is right for you." Only I and my deity know what is best
> for me and only I and my deity should make that choice.  Not you.  Not
> Jerry  F.  Not  Ronnie R. (BTW - Hitler was enforcing his idea of what
> was right on other people and that made him wrong.)
> 

I hate to disappoint you, but enforcing your idea of what is right on
other people is NOT usually wrong.  Whether it is right or wrong depends
on whether your idea of right or wrong is right or wrong.  If you see a
person committing a murder, and you know that you can easily prevent it,
you are (usually) morally obligated to prevent it, even if he thinks
that murder is good clean fun.  Any morality worthy of the name will
occasionally REQUIRE itself to be enforced upon the unwilling. About the
only thing that can be said in favor of Robert's position is that these
occasions are a hell of a lot rarer than the Ayatollah Robertson thinks
they are.  Nevertheless, when one arises, you had darn well better
recognize it (South Africa should leap to mind unbidden here, as Dixie
did in 1956-66).  If you have a morality then you are usually morally
obligated to enforce it through as wide a sphere as your power
will permit.  There are some cases where you can claim ignorance of how
other people ought (morally) to behave, but in most cases that is just a
cop-out.  An obviously key component of any morality is some guidelines
about legitimate use of force.  A morality that cannot legitimize force
in its own defense is usually untenable.