Jean-Louis:
>Unfortunately, there is no universal morality. In some countries,
>prisoners are tortured. I am of course outraged by these immoral acts,
>but cannot show hostility, since they honestly believe they are
>serving justice. The only thing to do would be to explain my point of
>view, and try to convince them to adopt less "barbaric" laws.

If it is not universal, I don't call it morality. Ethics   m u s t   have
to do something with an objective point of view. If not, it is purely
ethical relativism.Ethical relativism leads to the following:
Not so long ago people in the south of the U.S. believed that having slaves
is just a normal lifestyle, nothing to worry about, no ethics implied there.
And others with different ethical beliefe systems considered them to do wrong.

If it is "allowed" to settle your own ethical system, everyone will set this
in a way that facilitates his own lifestyle more or less. Also nobody can
complain about other ethical systems since this is not allowed.

Therefore ethical relativism will lead to nothing in the best case; in the
worst case it leads to any unwanted behavior one can think of.

Peter Singer compares different ethical systems and writes a lot about
axioms an ethical system must fulfill to even be called ethical. In Europe
people discuss him very controversial because he also speaks about active and
passive euthanasia. Very interesting: his arguments for and again the
killing of beings. He discusses killing of any type of being thouroughly.
The title of the book is something like "practical ethics" (I just got the
german translation.) A must read in my oppinion.

Instinctive ethical wishes,

Stefan

E-Mail: " Stefan Joest" [log in to unmask]