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    Persistent, cross-cultural moral disagreement on foundati... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→If God guided the evolutionary process with the goal of creating morally significant creatures capable of relation with God, it would not be accidental that humans have largely correct moral beliefs

    Persistent, cross-cultural moral disagreement on foundational questions—slavery, torture, obligations to outsiders—undermines the claim that humans have 'largely correct' moral beliefs.

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    1 reason for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Societies have confidently endorsed slavery, torture, and subordination across all continents and epochs, suggesting widespread error in foundational morality.
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    • 2.If humans possessed largely correct moral beliefs, we'd expect convergence on basic principles over time; persistent disagreement suggests systematic distortion.
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    • 3.Moral progress requires acknowledging past societies were deeply wrong on core issues, not that they had 'largely correct' beliefs with minor errors.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Disagreement on *application* of shared principles (autonomy, suffering) doesn't prove disagreement on foundational values themselves.
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    • 2.Pointing to historical wrongs proves humans *can be* mistaken, not that they lack substantial moral knowledge—science also had widespread errors.
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    • 3.'Largely correct' allows majority agreement on foundational prohibitions (killing innocents, betrayal) despite persistent edge-case disagreements.
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    Key Terms

    Moral beliefs(in ethics)
    Your personal convictions about what is right and wrong, good and bad.
    Moral disagreement(as used in ethics)
    When people disagree about whether something is right or wrong, like whether torture can ever be justified.
    cross-cultural(as used in anthropology and philosophy)
    Something that appears in or affects multiple different cultures and societies around the world.
    foundational questions(as used to describe the core issues at the heart of a philosophical system)
    The most fundamental inquiries that a philosophy tries to answer, like 'What is real?' or 'How do we know things?'
    persistent(describing moral disagreement that doesn't resolve itself)
    Something that continues to exist or happen over a long time without going away.
    undermines(as used in argumentation)
    Weakens or damages something by removing support for it or showing it doesn't work.

    Connections

    2 topics

    Natural Theology1 linkedDivine Attributes1 linked

    Related

    'Largely correct' allows majority agreement on foundational prohibitions (killin...Disagreement on *application* of shared principles (autonomy, suffering) doesn't...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    If God guided the evolutionary process with the goal of creating morally signifi...
    If humans possessed largely correct moral beliefs, we'd expect convergence on ba...
    +3 moreShow less
    Moral progress requires acknowledging past societies were deeply wrong on core i...Pointing to historical wrongs proves humans *can be* mistaken, not that they lac...Societies have confidently endorsed slavery, torture, and subordination across a...