You said it was accepted in ancient Rome. Does that mean it's morally acceptable depending on the circumstances?
Now you are being willfully something...
Well there is Reality... Although our perception of it is filtered by our bias and whatnot.Even Einstein had to give that up dude .. Its time to move on. No. There is no objective truth and yes there actually be spooky action at a distance.
Well I never have. But how would you define "child"? What is considered a child varies from culture to culture and time periods.
You said it was accepted in ancient Rome. Does that mean it's morally acceptable depending on the circumstances?
Well there is Reality... Although our perception of it is filtered by our bias and whatnot.
So it's objectively true that you've never molested a child, even if the whole world says you did.
For what defines a child, let's say a 2 month old baby.
How about Teenagers? Is an 18y/o who has sex with a 17y/o a child molester?So it's objectively true that you've never molested a child, even if the whole world says you did.
For what defines a child, let's say a 2 month old baby.
Well yes of course.So you'd postulate that there is reality even without human beings?
How about Teenagers? Is an 18y/o who has sex with a 17y/o a child molester?
Well yes of course.
So if the Age of Consent in a State is 16 , then her having consensual relations with anyone older is immoral then?By law yes. Morally, somewhat ho hum. But there is absolutely no room for cultural interpretations for children not even on the cusp of puberty.
Arh theres the scientist, illuminating the extremes. Good.
You'd need consensus on defining "molested" and if 99 people of the 100 in existence says, sex with a 2 month old is not... Then it is not. Per definition. Eye of the beholder.
(Consequently in relation to this being P/N, this is what is so damned scary with Trumpism and the alt right, spam enough lies, broadcast enough Fox, and they DO get redefine consensus on what is reality ... It is exactly this principle at play)
How is Reality gone then if a person dies? Sooner or later a person will die, but Life goes on.Agree to disagree then... Where does "reality" live? It can only be *one* place .. between the neurons firing synapses at other neurons inside your brain. Flip the switch. Reality gone.
edit : Anyway, we will never agree on this, at least not within a limited time frame, rest assured it is an old old old old debate .. Look up Bohr vs Einstein, spooky action at a distance, the EPR paradox, its all sides of the same coin.
So if the Age of Consent in a State is 16 , then her having consensual relations with anyone older is immoral then?
Does doing such actions causes harm to the other person? Would you like it if those actions were done to you?It may or may not be immoral. The question is not whether we can find blurry borders within which to say that some things are subject to interpretation and cultural differences, but rather whether there are acts sufficiently bad which are not subject to interpretation, like raping an 8 year old, or enslaving black people.
Greenspan never, to my knowledge, cited Rand as a source for any technical argument in economics. She was a big _political_ influence on him in his younger days (and I believe -- though my memory might be mistaken - he was slightly embarrassed about it, as he should be, given the cult-like nature of her circle).
No, that's not how it worked. Feudalism was a complicated system, and the key point is they didn't think in terms of absolute property rights, rather there was a complex network of duties and obligations and rights in relation to land that different classes of people had.
It also varied greatly from place-to-place. Sometimes what happened was that tribal chiefs, who started off as just the most powerful of the various warlords, offering 'protection' to those less militarily capable, gradually evolved into land-lords claiming 'ownership' of the land the clan lived on (I believe that's how it worked in Scotland). At every step these claims were usually contested. People generally didn't own land outright, they had various rights to various aspects of it and those rights depended on a kind of collective consent (or just violence).
Then came the enclosures (or in Scotland the Highland clearances...in India the British effectively turned the old tithe-collector class into landlords...different in different cultures, but feudalism was not the same as capitalism).
You keep speaking of 'ownership' as if it's absolute and uncontestable and carries no accompanying social obligations, as if there's such a thing as a 'self made man'.
Not sure what your point is here. Libertarians claim to be opposed to 'the intiation of force' but unfortunately force was 'initiated' a very long time ago.
Now you are just being silly. If you trace back people with money and where that wealth came from you don't usually have to go back very far to find the key point was ownership or non-ownership of land.
Even now it's a huge issue - paying for housing versus renting it out is a big determiner of who is doing well or not, economically (it's one of the disputes between Millennials and Baby-boomers, I guess), and the main cost of housing is the land it stands on. It's far from the _only_ issue of course, but it's a big one and to me it seems the most awkward one for libertarian-fundies to justify (which is why even Locke struggled with it, ending up making the absurd claim that you came to own it by getting your servant or slave to mix his labour with it!).
I read a biog of Henry Ford, the quintessential self-made man, and it mentioned in passing that while he was first working on his new horseless carriage, he was able to support himself and his family because he'd inherited a large acreage of woodland that he harvest for wood to sell. I doubt many black Americans had that start. These things can carry on in their effect through the generations.
It also often strikes me as one reason why US politics is different, because white Americans got to grab their patch of land and imagine they were autonomous self-creators creating wealth ex-nihilo, which just was not historically how it worked elsewhere (nor was it for black or native Americans of course).
Does doing such actions causes harm to the other person? Would you like it if those actions were done to you?
Actions have Consequences which can be beneficial, harmful, or neutral.Of course they harm the other person, and of course I wouldn't want them done to me.
But is an act like raping an 8 year old objectively wrong or not? Is there any context in which it is morally permissible?
Some people have trouble with this, I have never understood why.Sexually penetrating a 2 year old. Does that constitute child molestation to you?
- You cant really know can you?How is Reality gone then if a person dies? Sooner or later a person will die, but Life goes on.
I think Atreus21 first needs to ask, Does is Morality exit, What is Morality, Why do Humans have it, and do we need Moral Systems?Some people have trouble with this, I have never understood why.
To answer your question : YES OF COURSE IT DOES.
Totally missing the point that if the other 99 people in existence DONT think it is, then that is what it is.
Actions have Consequences which can be beneficial, harmful, or neutral.
And why is it wrong? How did you determined that is the case?Well, not really the point but: Consequences occur in the future, and we can't always predict the future. We can excuse a man for good actions in the present that produce apparently bad consequences in the future. We cannot (or must not) excuse a man whose evil actions in the present accidentally produce good results.
Raping an 8 year old is wrong, regardless of the consequences.
And why is it wrong? How did you determined that is the case?