If there is no true north, then killing and stealing and all manner of nastiness can be justified in terms of one's own notion of morality, and that is what many societies do, usually for strictly secular reasons.
Sadly, that's also the case if there is a true north -- because our perceptions are necessarily subjective and we won't all agree on what true north is.
Handy example: you've already stated one moral principle I don't agree with. (The one about how a moral society should not sanction the killing of someone who has killed someone else. I don't support the death penalty, but that's because of how obscenely it gets misused, not because of its basic premise.)
I was going to say something further, but I think first I'd better ask you to clarify precisely what you mean when you say "an ethical society". A society with ethical laws? A society in which people behave ethically without a need for enforcement?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-09-21 03:44 pm (UTC)Sadly, that's also the case if there is a true north -- because our perceptions are necessarily subjective and we won't all agree on what true north is.
Handy example: you've already stated one moral principle I don't agree with. (The one about how a moral society should not sanction the killing of someone who has killed someone else. I don't support the death penalty, but that's because of how obscenely it gets misused, not because of its basic premise.)
I was going to say something further, but I think first I'd better ask you to clarify precisely what you mean when you say "an ethical society". A society with ethical laws? A society in which people behave ethically without a need for enforcement?