bkc
2003-07-11, 05:59
Was reading about situational ethics, which is a book by Joseph Fletcher that basically says that nothing is moral or immoral unless it is done with or without love, respectively.
Which is what I am saying, with one difference. The difference is that he doesn't have a precise definition of love. His definition being something like "Do good to others", which raises the question "What is good?" and then you define good, but your definition of good is based on some other word, which you have to define, and it goes on and on...
But if you define love to mean that the only moral is that there are no other morals, then you have the only definition of love that is unassailable, and you can now have situational ethics be a useful concept. The idea being that it is a moral, or rule, to say that there are no other absolutes. So you aren't saying there are no absolutes. It is an absolute, the only one, to say there are no other absolutes. Note the circularity of this truth.
Which is what I am saying, with one difference. The difference is that he doesn't have a precise definition of love. His definition being something like "Do good to others", which raises the question "What is good?" and then you define good, but your definition of good is based on some other word, which you have to define, and it goes on and on...
But if you define love to mean that the only moral is that there are no other morals, then you have the only definition of love that is unassailable, and you can now have situational ethics be a useful concept. The idea being that it is a moral, or rule, to say that there are no other absolutes. So you aren't saying there are no absolutes. It is an absolute, the only one, to say there are no other absolutes. Note the circularity of this truth.