Trigger words: immoral (2)
Indicator sentences: Well, let's start here with the question of how you're defining "moral" or "immoral." You seem to be adopting a kind of "if enough people are vocally against it" standard for this first part, but is that really your system of determining was is moral?
Negotiation parts: If so, how do you know the number of people who actually were okay with his actions and simply didn't say anything, and that the apparent overwhelming opposition was really just a smaller number of more outraged people? Essentially, you seem to be treating volume of the voices for the number of voices. So let's say 51% of the world population was okay with it (a silent majority, to be a bit hackneyed), would that mean his actions were moral? On the other side, as recently as 2013 a majority of Americans opposed gay marriage, did that make gay people who did get married in that year immoral? ∆ Woah. You *really* went deep there. First of all, you're right - I was making some assumptions about the definition of morality. Truth is, I don't know the definition. The question "what is moral" seems close enough to the question "what is good/bad", something philosophers have been giving themselves headaches over for centuries, even millennia. As for your definition of a moral compass, you're right again. As I have responded to comments above, my statement has simply become one about what people's morals should be and not whether the law should be involved. Changing my statement to "people shouldn't act upon bad morals" or something similar would be what the Dutch call "a truth as a cow" - a statement so obvious that it would be silly to defend it.
Trigger words: moral compass compass (2)
Indicator sentences: Which is really all a moral compass represents:
Negotiation parts: Well, okay, but the dentist in your first example did believe he was acting morally (since otherwise he wouldn't have done it). His argument that it was legal is not an argument that he felt it immoral but did it because it was legal, but rather that it was legal and so no one else can force their morality on to him. Your argument doesn't seem to be "we shouldn't use law as a moral compass" (since the dentist probably *does* have a moral compass outside of law, but one which includes killing lions) but rather that anyone whose moral compass does not go above and beyond what the law requires is immoral purely by virtue of not being closer to your moral code. What if my moral compass says "I got this seat first, and I don't give a damn about that old lady"? That's not using law as a moral compass, that's having a moral compass which does not require me to give up my seat and there not being a legal requirement to do so. what behaviors do I believe I should engage in, and what behaviors should I not engage in, within the bounds of the laws which I must abide by. Which means neither the moral compass of "let the old lady take my seat" nor the moral compass of "fuck her I don't want to stand" is using the law as that compass. ∆ Woah. You *really* went deep there. First of all, you're right - I was making some assumptions about the definition of morality. Truth is, I don't know the definition. The question "what is moral" seems close enough to the question "what is good/bad", something philosophers have been giving themselves headaches over for centuries, even millennia. As for your definition of a moral compass, you're right again. As I have responded to comments above, my statement has simply become one about what people's morals should be and not whether the law should be involved. Changing my statement to "people shouldn't act upon bad morals" or something similar would be what the Dutch call "a truth as a cow" - a statement so obvious that it would be silly to defend it.