Martin William Smith wrote:

> Dan Koenig writes:
> > It seems to me that objective morality is "What is right", an
> > absolute truth if you will, regardless of how we perceive it.
> >
> > What we perceive to be an objective morality or absolute truth is
> > actually quite subjective, of necessity, because it is what we
> > perceive to be true rather than necessarily what is true; in other
> > words, a relative truth that will vary from person to person and
> > even from one time to another for the same person.
> >
> > If we believe that there is an "objective morality" or what I call
> > an absolute truth, then we can spend our lives trying to grasp it
> > and be guided by it (an eminently worthwhile endeavour in my view).
> > However, we should at the same time recognize that our perception of
> > it is a relative truth that will vary from somebody else's best
> > perception of absolute truths (or objective morality), which will be
> > another relative truth.
> >
> > We should not attempt to kill others because their best intentioned
> > perception differs from our own.
>
> I agree.  However, if you protest the bombing based on this moral, you
> are behaving as if this moral is objective.  You are saying it is
> wrong for NATO to bomb because this moral is true regardless of their
> subjective moral beliefs.  You are saying this moral is true
> independent of their concepts.  Otherwise you are not protesting on
> moral grounds.  You can be inspired to protest by your subjective
> moral beliefs, but you cannot justify your protest with them.
>

As the following paragraph you included from my quote indicates, I quite
agree that my perception of objective morality, like everybody else's, is
by its nature subjective.  However, where we differ (again) is that I have
a bias for action rather than debate. None of us can ever claim to be 100%
confident that we comprehend and understand objective (or absolute)
morality.  The question then becomes do we act on the basis of our most
honest attempts to understand absolute truth, freeing our motivation as
much as possible from pride and envy and greed and hate and lust etc., or
do we allow the fact that moral certainty is unattainable in this life to
paralyze us morally or mentally?  My best understanding of absolute truth
is that it is wrong to kill another human being, particularly if my
motivation is to open new markets or to be able to consume a
disproportionate share of the world's resources at the expense of others
who live where those resources are located. I think that the motivation of
the U.S. governing plutocracy (not the majority of its people) is clearly
materially based with human rights being nothing but a rhetoric to justify
its mass killings of people around the world.  For example, the sanctions
on Iraq are undeniably weapons of mass destruction that overwhelmingly
attack children and innocent civilians. . . .to ensure control over
mid-East oil.  How many tens of thousands of innocent children have died
so that people can have the "freedom" to roar down the highways in gas
guzzlers and play on snowmobiles, etc.?  Yes, absolute morality will
always be only subjectively perceived as a grey area -- but sometimes it
is a lot more blackish or whitish than at other times.  I believe in
acting on those occasions. And protests are effective, though success
cannot always be predicted in advance.  There was the Long Parliament,
Gandhi, Mandela, the Hungarian students in 1956, the Czechs in 1968, the
Poles and Solidarity in 1980, and so many more throughout history. If I
correctly intuit the spirit of your posts, as those events were happening
you would have described them as futile and justifying the existing
system.  I would not share that view.  With respect, however, I am
spending too much time posting views and this is taking too much time that
I really want to spend in other pursuits.  Au revoir. dk

> > Regrettably, people have been killing others for millennia because
> > the others did not share their relative truths about religion,
> > economics, politics, lifestyles, etc.  I think that by their
> > behaviours such people indicate that they are a very far way off
> > from even approximating an understanding of objective morality
> > . . . . . . .but, then, that's only my relative truth.
>
> martin