From: Stuart Armstrong (dragondreaming@googlemail.com)
Date: Tue Feb 10 2009 - 02:46:59 MST
> Weak morals weaken and strong morals strengthen societies.
Nonsense. The greatest acheivements of modern humanity have been built
largely on greed - something all moral systems universally condemned
until recently. Some strong morals do help societies cope - but the
strongly moral societies have a tendency to collapse in disarray when
confronted with more adaptible enemies.
>> Weak morals weaken and strong morals strengthen societies.
>
> If you mean that moral strength is measured by rate of population growth, then I agree.
No, he doesn't mean that - unless there is some strange bible code in
his statement, or is using an alternative pseudo english where
"morals" actually means "population growth".
On the substantive point, I fail to see any way in which the
Democratic republic of Congo, say, can be considered a morally strong
country, by any measure...
> Morals are not weak or strong, only different. Whatever happens to the human race will be judged good from the perspective of the species that replaces us.
And that (to use the terms on this thread) is a positive statement,
not a normative one. The opinion of people half way across the world
is only slightly relevant to my morals here and now; the opinion of
people not yet born, or already dead, is even less relevant.
Stuart
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