Canadians in Afghanistan

[Undertoad]

Why are they alive? Because an adult learns to not blindly follow rules. There is no such thing as simple 'good and evil'; 'right and wrong'. Those are concepts for children.

In the philosophy industry, they describe this position as moral relativism.

The problem I have is --

In the Persian Gulf, an American frigate hit a mine and was sinking. A Pentagon Admiral ordered the ship be abandon. The Captain refused and saved his ship. Therefore the Pentagon ordered a Court Marshall. It should be obvious who acted as an adult. So did Lehman who (as undersecretary of the Navy) stepped in and therefore saved this Captain.

In this example, "acted like an adult" is merely another shorthand for "right" and "wrong" or "good" and "evil". But notice, tw has made clear value judgements. The Captain did the "right" thing (the "adult" thing). Someone in the Pentagon did the "wrong" thing (the "childish" thing). Lehman did the "right" thing.

Rules said that when a fire alarm sounded, then all astronauts were to open the escape hatch, slide down a cable, get into an armoured personnel carrier and drive away like hell. The alarm went off. But a shuttle commander also understood WHYs. The shuttle commander violated well established rules.

The commander did the "right" thing.

I think what tw is sort of referring to, whether he knows it or not, is Kohlberg's stages of moral development. Kohlberg found six distinct "stages" people go through in moral reasoning, typically moving from childhood to adult. One of the stages, stage four, is the "law and order" stage where the "rules" are considered the most important aspect of morality. Beyond stage four are the principled stages, where you lear to determine morality based on "abstract reasoning using universal ethical principles".

But the notion that we go through stages of morality doesn't mean that those universal ethical principles don't exist.

AG would say, I think, that the universal ethical principles exist and are knowable. TW, by determining that people do "the adult thing" you inherently accept some knowable universal ethical principles. You believe in good and evil; you just don't CALL it that.