tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post5590506001032632485..comments2024-03-19T07:27:06.216-04:00Comments on VOTARIES OF HORROR: Morality in America: Spike & DexterKatherine Woodburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14364517253667798449noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post-87164519345247592012008-10-05T11:48:00.000-04:002008-10-05T11:48:00.000-04:00I think you are correct. I am thinking more about ...I think you are correct. I am thinking more about application than "first cause." <BR/><BR/>"First cause" comes down to the Law of Human Nature--most of which I understand from C.S. Lewis' writings. The Law of Human Nature always sounds to me like a law dealing with anthropology but, in fact, it posits that there is a fundamental understanding of what is good and right underlying, even superceding, our human experience, and it is only that understanding that makes it possible for us to criticize behavior as unfair, detrimental, or wrong. <BR/><BR/>The relevant passage from <I>Mere Christianity</I> can be linked to here:<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.btinternet.com/~a.ghinn/lawof.htm" REL="nofollow">The Law of Human Nature</A> <BR/><BR/>On a tangent, this is one reason I consider the ideology of environmentalism for its own sake so silly. As Goldblum's character points out in <I>Jurassic Park</I>, nature doesn't care whether it is composed of people, dinosaurs, trees, dust, mud, or volcanos. Nature isn't good or bad, just indifferent. Only humans decide that one state of affairs is better than another.Kate Woodburyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06276977170991272672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post-2387548464970610052008-09-30T12:20:00.000-04:002008-09-30T12:20:00.000-04:00The formulation of morality as external law (impos...The formulation of morality as external law (imposed), internal law, or mere choice doesn't quite get at it.<BR/><BR/>To be sure, morality necessarily entails choice. We only hold individuals accountable to the extent that they are able to choose, and both the internal and external law(s) are intended to influence that choice. This does not, however, elucidate the question of what they ought choose. It is, for instance, relatively easy to find instances when law - of either variety - encouraged what is immoral, i.e., not good.<BR/><BR/>Morality, therefore, also must entail a definition of what is good. Even more difficult, the question of morality entails a hierarchy of goods (and, by extension, evils), since sometimes we find ourselves in situations where choosing one good precludes another good or where all options are not good.<BR/><BR/>The objective nature of "good" is difficult to discern, though, since our means of discerning it are subjective. This has led some to declare that good (morality) is itself subjective and relative. Yet it cannot be so or there would be no moral basis for opposing even the worst of tyrants. Indeed, if good is subjective and relative, the very notion "worst of tyrants" comes to mean merely "leader I dislike intensely".<BR/><BR/>One must also distinguish between the QUALITY of being moral and the CHARACTERISTIC of behaving morally. I think this is what you're getting at with the external/internal law distinction. Even those who do not accept the constraints of law, or what the law affirms as good, may behave morally, not so much because the fear the law but because they have chosen to defer to another's judgment.<BR/><BR/>Conversely, even those who seem disobedient or immoral may have the quality of being moral if they discern correctly what is good and affirm it. Of course, the hope is that the quality and characteristic of morality will unite in a given individual.<BR/><BR/>Where religion comes into this is in the aid it provides us as we seek to know subjectively that which is objectively good and in fostering the union of quality and characteristic in believers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com