Some of our most common moral prohibitions are of action types with unlawfulness/wrongfulness written into their very definition. The notion that there could be exceptions to these rules is incoherent.
For instance, it's a real question when if ever, and on what grounds, there is moral justification for *killing* someone. But there is no …
Some of our most common moral prohibitions are of action types with unlawfulness/wrongfulness written into their very definition. The notion that there could be exceptions to these rules is incoherent.
For instance, it's a real question when if ever, and on what grounds, there is moral justification for *killing* someone. But there is no question when a moral justification obtains for *murdering* (unlawfully killing) someone.
I think morality and positive law can come apart. But if you mean to build *moral wrongness* into the definition, then the question instead becomes whether an act of apparent "murder" is actually murder at all, or rather the (morally justified but illegal) killing of an innocent person.
Yes, exactly! The question in relation to things like murder (and other morally charged kinds) is whether a given action should really count as an instance of that kind. And yes, I mean moral wrongness, and agree morality and positive law can come apart.
Btw, I was reacting to this line: “I’m not defending an absolutist view here: there are always conceivable exceptions to any rule.” Which you wrote in the context of discussing procedural rules having little to do with my example, of course.
But I think my point still raises an important question in relation to absolutism per se, and how we understand (absolute) prohibitions in morality in general. Pointing to the murder/killing distinction is just the easiest way to illustrate the point.
If a terrorist will detonate a bomb in a city killing a million people, unless I shoot an innocent person in the face, it sounds more accurate to call that shooting a morally justified murder, rather than to call it definitionally not a murder.
I agree, but as a purely terminological disagreement, it also doesn't really matter in the slightest, as long as people are clear about how *they're* using the term...
Hey, has anybody ever presented this paradox that just came to me?
Terrorist will blow up 1,000 people unless you kill someone immorally. Killing 1 to save 1,000 would be moral, but then it wouldn't satisfy the terrorist. So you would be killing someone without saving anyone, which would be immoral. This would satisfy the terrorist and save the 1,000 people. But then your killing would be moral...
Some of our most common moral prohibitions are of action types with unlawfulness/wrongfulness written into their very definition. The notion that there could be exceptions to these rules is incoherent.
For instance, it's a real question when if ever, and on what grounds, there is moral justification for *killing* someone. But there is no question when a moral justification obtains for *murdering* (unlawfully killing) someone.
I think morality and positive law can come apart. But if you mean to build *moral wrongness* into the definition, then the question instead becomes whether an act of apparent "murder" is actually murder at all, or rather the (morally justified but illegal) killing of an innocent person.
Not sure what any of this has to do with the OP.
Yes, exactly! The question in relation to things like murder (and other morally charged kinds) is whether a given action should really count as an instance of that kind. And yes, I mean moral wrongness, and agree morality and positive law can come apart.
Btw, I was reacting to this line: “I’m not defending an absolutist view here: there are always conceivable exceptions to any rule.” Which you wrote in the context of discussing procedural rules having little to do with my example, of course.
But I think my point still raises an important question in relation to absolutism per se, and how we understand (absolute) prohibitions in morality in general. Pointing to the murder/killing distinction is just the easiest way to illustrate the point.
If a terrorist will detonate a bomb in a city killing a million people, unless I shoot an innocent person in the face, it sounds more accurate to call that shooting a morally justified murder, rather than to call it definitionally not a murder.
I agree, but as a purely terminological disagreement, it also doesn't really matter in the slightest, as long as people are clear about how *they're* using the term...
Hey, has anybody ever presented this paradox that just came to me?
Terrorist will blow up 1,000 people unless you kill someone immorally. Killing 1 to save 1,000 would be moral, but then it wouldn't satisfy the terrorist. So you would be killing someone without saving anyone, which would be immoral. This would satisfy the terrorist and save the 1,000 people. But then your killing would be moral...
That's fun! Some structurally similar paradoxes discussed here: https://www.philosophyetc.net/2005/02/this-desire-is-thwarted.html
Not at all. That to me is a morally justified killing, and therefore *not murder*.