I would dispute that the advance of technology has no impact on our ethical landscape. As an example, consider the practice of Puritans to try 'witches' for having a crop yield better than their neighbors or miraculously recovering from some affliction. In this day and age, trying people for witchcraft falls squarely outside of our ethical boundaries, and this is due in large part to scientific inquiry providing rational explanations for things that were previously attributed to the occult.

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[b][SIZE=2]"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."[/b][/SIZE]

-Thomas Jefferson

Please provide us just one example of a conservative political theorist offering support for the bolded part of your statement.

As far as I'm concerned, the point that I have bolded is not supported by any conservative theory of any kind. It is de facto a core principle of liberalism and indeed, the orginal dividing line between conservatives and liberals (Tories and Whigs to be specific) - the question of whether or not the human condition is 'improvable'. Conservativism is predicated upon the answer "no" - liberalism is predicated upon the answer "yes".

Methinks you are describing DGG's personal political philosophy. That's all well and fine, but to call it "conservative" is not tenable. No conservative theorist has ever offered any rationale or theoretical support for this assertion of yours.

Agreement in principle with "equal rights" puts you into a minority of conservatives. I believe Edmund Burke is the only "equal rights" conservative theorist - he is of course much maligned in America and Europe.

If that isn't a legislated change in the meaning of a word, I don't know what is.

I'm not sure of the status of the Church in Sweden. I believe it is an 'Established' Church? (as in the English Anglican Church?).

If it be a State 'established' Church, then the Church can (and ought) to be forced against its will.

If the Church is not 'established' then I don't see how any legislation can compell a religious institution to conduct a religious ceremony against their will.

None of my damn business. And none of yours. Only theirs.

This is the norm throughout the Western world. A legal marriage only exists under formal State sanction. From a legal perspective, 'religious' marriage has no meaning, status or function.

As noted above. This is the legal norm throughout all western nations.

It is this way for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the State has been regulating marriage as such for many centuries.

And it is a principle of western liberty that the State cannot dictate to relgious groups what they can and cannot do. Ergo, the State cannot compel any religious group to perform (or not perform) any given religious ceremony (as you appear to want to do).

Marriage is 100% a civil jurisdiction. Religion is the 'interloper' into the field, using marriage to try to usurp civil authority for their own religious/political purposes.

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[I]Remember what the dormouse said, 'feed your head'. [/I]

It seems to me that there is a general consensus that ethical changes in society are caused by a variety of factors, and some degree of consensus as to the nature of those factors. So, I will pose two additional questions for the sake of discussion:

1) Do societies and human kind generally improve steadily in terms of their ethics, or are the changes "neutral" (not better or worse, just different)? Does anyone think that the ethical landscape becomes generally worse?

2) Do we consider our current ethical standards to be appropriate because we've made an objective and rational consideration of the matter, or is it simply that we're comfortable and familiar with them? (As an example, consider the practice of indentured servitude - this certainly violates our current ethics. Do we consider the practice abhorrent because we understand the complex social ramifications or because we were raised to consider it abhorrent?)

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[b][SIZE=2]"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."[/b][/SIZE]

-Thomas Jefferson

Is that really true? Given that homosexuality is not a new phenomenon, but we know about homosexuals in Ancient Greece and China, by your logic, after 2,000 years shouldn't homosexuality have been accepted long ago? Certainly it should have been accepted by now, but it hasn't been. It seems the acceptance of homosexuality has been curvilinear. Maybe some folks like Alexander the Great, the island of Lesbos, and a bunch of other gays in Greece and in the imperial court of China accepted it, but then we had hundred of years in America where it certainly was not accepted. It's not accepted in China today. It's considered a disgrace on the entire family. I've been told that I would be killed or disowned by my parents for going "that route."

I'm just saying, how do you explain the disparity between history and your theory?


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That's the way I have always viewed it. I think his point of view stems from conservatives who try and define a whole movement by it's extremists in order to make them all look bad such as when liberals are called Marxist on conservative radio.

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Up there in the immensity of the Cosmos, an inescapable perception awaits us. National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic, religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars. -Carl Sagan

It would appear that the Christian Church has actively interrupted the 'natural' progression of acceptance of homosexuality from a historical perspective. Homosexual acceptance was increasing until the Church began their proscriptions upon it. Now that the political authority of the Church has been neutered, homosexuality again returns to its previously interrupted path toward acceptance.

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[I]Remember what the dormouse said, 'feed your head'. [/I]

I'm thinking that these changes can only be called neutral. In fact, how would you decide that a moral system is "morally better"? To make a decision about that would require the knowledge of the "real moral system".

One could argue that with time and thinking, our moralities are becoming more coherent (whithout contradictions) and therefore better. I wouldn't follow this line of reasoning, on the ground that coherence based on wrong principles is worth no more than incoherence based on the same principles; both have equal chances to be in phase with the "real morality", if there's any. If that "real morality" doesn't exist, the question doesn't make sense. If it exists, wouldn't it be pretention to pretend to know it?

If I may, I'll reformulate this as "do we really care about the coherence of our ethical standarts?".
I think that there are forces that modify our ethics to get rid of incoherences; these forces can bring adjustments to ethics; I doubt they can radically change people's opinion. But I wouldn't bet that logic can't bring major changes.

Some other forces modify our ethics whithout caring about logic. In this case, it is very common to use logic afterwards to justify the modification. In all cases, as humans we do care about the objective and rational considerations of the matter; but it often happens that our instincts, or some terrible external force, is much stronger than our reason.

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Before you hit the button, check if every single word that you wrote is a step towards truth. Then delete those words that are unnecessary.
In return, I'll be trying to do it, too. And then we might have some meaningful discussion.

I think history will show us (if we LOOK) that the ethical landscape TENDS to worsen. This of course, doesn't mean that it always WILL. It means that a society that wants to last longer than, say 400 years or so, needs to be very mindful of the direction(s) it guides itself.


Take us here in the U.S. for instance. Freedom is our "thing". It's not, by definition a good or bad concept. It is a concept that we enjoy because it allows us (as individuals) control over much of our own decisions and the direction(s) we wish to take ourselves and our lives. However, freedom left uncontrolled will destroy us. The party of liberalism doesn't have this understanding that freedom must be reigned in or balanced by law and culture. We can't have people doing whatever they feel like doing at any given instant in the name of freedom. Our culture has decided on many of our laws. For instance public nudity is illegal. Marriage is between males and females over the age of 18 and NOT related to one another.


Would legalizing or making acceptable these two or three things be harmful to our society ? This depends on who you ask.


MY opinion is that the TENDENCY is for the ethical landscape to worsen. Societies/cultures can get so comfortable and lazy they forget and become too weakened to repel attacks from outside. They MAY even attack themselves from the inside out in a self destructive manner.




This isn't a law of nature, I don't think (although it may BE built into us), and careful, careful management CAN bypass it.




MY opinion is that our current ethical standards are INappropriate. I conlude this only based on my observations of peoples behaviour (this includes LARGELY, our politicians).


I consider the concept of indentured servitude abhorrent because I, myself wouldn't care to live like that.

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[I]They exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator. . . . Therefore, God gave them up to passions of dishonor; for their females exchanged the natural use for that which is contrary to nature.[/I] - Romans 1:25-26

Use liberals artistic manipulation of logic and language against them.

My thoughts exactly.
I'd be curious to actually meet such a feminazi though. Never met one.

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It is often said that anarchists live in a world of dreams and do not see the things which happen today. We see them only too well, and in their true colors, and that is what makes us carry the hatchet into the forest of prejudices that besets us.
[I]P.Kropotkin; Anarchism: Its philosophy and ideal.[/I]

Well China has never had a church and its always been rejected there. I don't think homosexuality is accepted in most places except for Europe. Even in the liberal areas of the United States, I think there's a lot of people who don't accept it and don't respect it. Do you have any historical support for your claim that before the Church rose to prominence in the late Roman Empire, that homosexuality was accepted before then or are you making that up?


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