The Lowest of the Low--Denial of the Reality of Ethics

It would seem that Divine Command Theory of conservative Christianity which claims that an action is only wrong or right if God declares it so is the worst form of ethics.

How much lower can one get than to proclaim that ethnic cleansing, the slaughter and rape of enemies, the abuse and torture of others, the enslavement of humans is good or justified because the Almighty says so?

For a long time, it appeared that DCT was the worst of the worst.

Thankfully most secular human leaders (in the U.S. at least)—regardless of their particular worldview--emphasized human rights, justice, equality, fairness, generosity, tolerance, the Bill of Rights including free speech, freedom to change and criticize religions and ideologies, etc. (to one degree or another).
BUT all that has changed.

Now many secular leaders are claiming there are no human rights, no objective ethics, that all ethics, even opposition to rape and enslavement are only "subjective" constructs"!

When did the abhorrent tilt to relativism come about?

(It’s enough to scare the living daylights out of any human rights worker, any Civil Rights leader, any one involved in law enforcement, any normal citizen who is concerned with real ethics.)

Look at this strange exchange this week on the Internet:

Atheist blogger Neil Carter wrote, "our moral systems of guidance are no more objective than the compass Jack Sparrow carries around with him on his many misadventures.2 And that furthermore, that is perfectly okay."
--

Human Rights Daniel Wilcox: This is completely untrue. Rape, slaughter, slavery, molestation, abuse are ALWAYS WRONG. Human rights, justice, goodness, equality, etc. are always right.

For instance, the Humanist Manifesto III states, (like the Enlightenment, and human right organizations now such as Amnesty International) that "We are committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity, and to making informed choices in a context of freedom consonant with responsibility.”

Note emphasis in the Manifesto on words such as
"Inherent worth"
"freedom"
"responsibility".

Humans don't make up ethics; they aren't "constructs" as Neil Carter claims.

On the contrary, ethics are discovered, are "inherent" in reality.
--

Neil Carter also wrote, "...humanists of every stripe can agree that human beings should never be treated as someone else’s property."
--

Note the danger of Carter's words:
"can agree"

But agreement has nothing to do with whether some action is good or bad!

And true ethics aren't based in any "can."

They are always "ought."

Besides, various humanists have justified not only enslavement, but the slaughter of civilians, torture, inequality,
and even claimed that infants aren’t “persons”!

And that, therefore, an infant, since it isn't a "person," it may be killed up to one year old!!

And that some animals have more value than some human infants!

Tragic. How confused and downright wrong such thinking is.

Even if humans changed their minds and declared various immoral actions no longer immoral and okay, they wouldn't be moral.

This sort of relativistic thinking is the extreme danger of nonobjective ethics.
Lots of humans in the past and now declare terrible actions good.

That has nothing to do with whether or not they really are good.
--

An Atheist:
“That we find near universal agreement about moral statements does not in any way refute their subjectivity.”
--

Human Rights Daniel
Humans don't make up ethics; they aren't "constructs."
--

An Atheist:
“They most certainly are. Ethics are abstractions that comprise many different factors. How we were raised, natural empathy, selfish desires, how importantly we value fairness, thoughtful consideration... all of these and more are used to develop what we would call "ethics."
--

2nd Atheist:
The legal definition of rape has changed during my lifetime. It wasn't until 1993 that marital rape was made illegal in all 50 states. So before then was marital rape moral or immoral?"
--

3rd Atheist:
"What any given culture puts into the bucket of "wrong" is inherently relativistic."
--

Human Rights Daniel:
No.

Ask Enlightenment leaders such as Thomas Paine, ask the UN Declaration of Human Rights, ask The Human Manifest III, ask Amnesty International, ask Martin Luther King Jr. and other Civil Rights workers, etc.
--

4th Atheist
"Appeal to authority. FAIL.

As you have been told here for years by many people much smarter than me:
There is no such thing as "objective ethics" or "objective morality". There is only ethics that most of us like or accept as part of our current social structure, just like every other society that exists or has existed."

"Have you stumbled upon a set of ethical observations equivalent to Newton's laws of motion, or the laws of thermodynamics in physics? Then your objective morality doesn't exist, and you should really stop embarrassing yourself by insisting it does simply because you're frightened of the idea of it not existing.

You like the ideals espoused in the Humanist Manifesto? That's nice. But don't pretend this is somehow an objective document. The fact that you (and most other people) might like the ideas within it does not make it objective."
--

5th Atheist:
"If you could devise an objective moral framework, i.e. one that objectively answers all moral questions under any circumstances, then you could have objective morals, on equal footing with mathematical truths. Of course, nobody has ever succeeded in creating such a framework.

Moreover, if these objective morals in certain cases would differ from your own subjective morals you would most probably reject the objective framework and go with your own subjective morals anyway. So, an objective moral framework (if even possible) is only useful if all people (inter)subjectively agree to the moral outcomes of the framework."
--

Atheist Blogger Neil Carter:
"My point is that all morals systems are constructs, even the ones we can agree on. And I'm pretty sure all humanists will agree that rape is bad."
--

H. R. Daniel Wilcox:
Whether humanists "agree" that they are subjectively against rape, has nothing to do with whether or not rape is really wrong.

Morals aren’t “constructs.”

Consider that the vast majority of orthodox Muslims believe in inequality for women, and think that ex-Muslims ought to be punished.

That isn't okay.

Those humans are objectively wrong, are immoral in their beliefs and actions.

Most Americans think that if the U.S. government tortures and slaughters civilians that is justified.

But that doesn't make it okay.

Many American Christians think that human rights ought to be denied same sexual couples!

But that doesn't make it okay.

Amnesty International has worked for human rights for many years. AI thinks every human has human rights. That human rights are real,
not "subjective" "likes."

Human rights aren’t “constructs” but are inherent in reality. Every human is born with rights which are “inherent” and “unalienable.”

No way are ethics "subjective" and made up by humans.

Even if every human on the face of the earth said that in some cases slavery, rape, slaughter, racism are okay, those actions still wouldn't be moral.
--

6th Atheist:
"Rape is bad" is not actually a moral statement without defining what "rape" means. And when it comes to the definition of rape there is no consensus, not even among humanists. Does rape require penetration, or could it include other sexual acts? Can it be rape if the perpetrator was convinced that it was consensual?

Can it be rape if there was no violence involved? Does rape within marriage require stronger evidence? Can the behavior of the victim be a mitigating factor? Etcetera.

ETA: I would (subjectively) answer these questions with yes, yes, yes, no, almost never. Others would (subjectively) come up with other answers.”
--

Look at the central statement again by the 4th Atheist:
“As you have been told here for years by many people much smarter than me:
There is no such thing as "objective ethics" or "objective morality". There is only ethics that most of us like or accept as part of our current social structure, just like every other society that exists or has existed.

Have you stumbled upon a set of ethical observations equivalent to Newton's laws of motion, or the laws of thermodynamics in physics? Then your objective morality doesn't exist, and you should really stop embarrassing yourself by insisting it does simply because you're frightened of the idea of it not existing.

You like the ideals espoused in the Humanist Manifesto? That's nice. But don't pretend this is somehow an objective document. The fact that you (and most other people) might like the ideas within it does not make it objective.”
--

And this is the view of many modern thinkers at present. Consider the views of the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari in his famous book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.

He states that "equality," "liberty," and human rights are "myths."

--
:-(

When did so many modern thinkers turn against the Enlightenment, and start claiming that ethics are “relative,” “subjective,” only human “constructs,” and rejecting the view that human rights are “inherent” and “unalienable”?

When did such humans begin to think that even rape and slavery are only subjective preferences or “dislikes” or “likes,” not really inherently evil actions?!

Deeply Troubled,

Daniel Wilcox

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Modern Thinkers

Two Opposite Views by Modern Thinkers on Ethics and Human Rights:

Good:
"When he rebels, a man identifies himself with other men and so surpasses himself,
and from this point of view
human solidarity is metaphysical."

"No cause justifies the deaths of innocent people."

"...exalt justice in order to fight against eternal injustice."

"Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal
to the essence of being."
Albert Camus

These quotes are from later in the life of Albert Camus. In his early writings,
he did present the modern view that ethics are subjective and relative, not real.
He even wrote of murder as amoral, in his book, The Stranger.

BUT then the world faced the horror of Nazi Germany. Camus worked for the French Underground, wrote against the Nazis and their atrocities.

And his thinking developed and changed. He wrote The Plague and The Rebel, and other books which emphasized goodness, compassion, and justice.

By the 1950's, Camus became deeply committed to human rights for everyone,
worked for social justice,
opposed wars,
especially objected to the killing of civilians,
and rejected governments' use of capital punishment.

"When he rebels, a man identifies himself with other men and so surpasses himself,
and from this point of view human solidarity is metaphysical."

According to Camus it is important to rebel against governments and societies which are unjust.

VERSUS

from ASK THE ATHEIST:

"So then, who...does an atheist believe gives them rights?
I obviously can’t speak for all atheists, but as for my own opinion
I would say it’s the same group
that gives all of us rights, namely society and by extension, the government."

"...rights in one part of the world aren’t the same as in other parts. Society defines your rights
based upon it’s culture and morality at the time.
These rights are given by society..."

"Now to answer your question about the Declaration of Independence,
as I understand it, the architects of the declaration were careful to leave out any reference to “god”."

from another atheist:
"Rights are derived from the culture or society doing the defining."

another atheist:
"Well, I think we have rights in the sense that we have the rights that society/ government...agrees that we have and grants to us...


"...“rights”...They’re not real things."

from Ask the Atheist
--

It seems very strange that Ask an Atheist
declares that the "architects of the
declaration were very careful to leave out any reference to "god."

What the heck?

It's exactly opposite in the Declaration:
The Enlightenment thinkers emphasized that God is the source of all humans' inherent rights:

From the Declaration--
"...to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God
entitle them,
a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
--

But even stranger--and far more despairing
is the claim by these writers at Ask an Atheist that it is societies and governments who give/grant humans "rights."

NOT SO!

If it is governments who give "rights," then they can take them away.

And they often do deny millions of humans their natural born rights.

Those of us who work for human rights organizations have spent many years opposing governments including South Africa, Pakistan, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Guatamala, North Korea, the U.S., etc. who have denied humans their rights.

That is why Enlightenment leaders emphasized all humans are born with inherent rights.

All humans are born to "equality," and "certain unalienable Rights."

ALL conscious, rational, ethical beings have inherent rights.

(I would take it a step further. ALL conscious, sentient creatures have inherent rights.
Isn't this the very emphasis of the Animal Rights movement?)

Rights are inherent,
and "unalienable" (meaning that no government
or society has a right to take them away, though many
claim they do)
and
all
humans
have the right
to reject any society or government
which denies them their inherent rights.

Listen to Albert Camus, again: "When he rebels,
a man identifies himself with other men and so surpasses himself,
and from this point of view human solidarity is metaphysical."

Don't listen to
these modern piped pipers who think that humans
in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, North Korea, etc.
ONLY
have the rights that their governments
and societies grant to them.

WRONG!

Rights are inherent in every human being.

Societies and governments, of course, do often deny
humans' ability to exercise
their rights.

But societies and governments
don't give rights.

We are born into the human species with rights and equality.


As Camus wrote, "Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being."

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Divine Right of Human Rights*

Human Rights? What are they?

Though Thomas Jefferson, (revolutionary, legislator, liberator, enslaver), lived a hypocritical, contradictory life, his clarion words still ring out and illuminate the nature of human rights.

“…All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Those rights were the essence of the Enlightenment.

If human rights are truly grounded in the very Nature of Being and Becoming, in the Eternal Essence of Existence, then they are rights which can’t be taken away, except wrongly by force, deception, and intolerance.

Rights are the truism of objective ethics. Yes, humans rights are grounded in Right in the absolute sense. Where ever there are conscious, rational, ethical living species anywhere in the universe, rights will exist.

Listen to Martin Luther King Jr. on this topic: “The first is this—the first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws…some things are right and some things are wrong.
(Yes)
Eternally so, absolutely so...Some things are right and some things are wrong, no matter if everybody is doing the contrary. Some things in this universe are absolute.”

But because of many factors, some leaders now, instead, try and base human rights on only finite sources. Shaky at best.

Grounding “human rights’ in anything finite whether evolutionary change, certain forms of government, various books, even good united statements such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights is wrong. That’s right. While all of these finite sources are understandable, they are all fraught with problems because they form very insecure foundations.

What human authority can give, it can take away. As it often does.

There’s always a “reason” to deny someone his or her rights. And according to millions of people, it’s always “we” who have the good reasons, and “them” who have the bad reasons.

As far back as Abraham Lincoln (with his denial of legal rights, etc. to pro- Southern legislators and citizens) and even further to John Adams (with the Alien and Sedition Acts), the U.S. government has, repeatedly, managed to justify the denial of human rights.

Indeed, try and think of any U.S. president who didn’t take away rights from citizens illegally and unfairly. I doubt one can find one!

Then think of how this denial of human rights has gone on through the centuries in all other countries as well, often to a very destructive degree. So unwell, so morally sick.

Hell (intentional double entendre), even grounding human rights in the Divine, doesn’t safeguard humans. Just look at some religious human rights defenders who often deny rights to “others.”

But at least starting with “human rights” as an irrevocable fact/ought/truth based in the very essential nature of ultimate reality is a start.

In the Light of Human Rights,

Daniel Wilcox

*Blog Action Day: “Every year since 2007, thousands of bloggers come together for one day to talk about one important issue.”