I understand you're point. And I don't necessarily think he's crazy. Though he probably does have at least SOME diagnosable mental illness, but who doesn't these days?
I think the issue I was taking with what you said though, was whether he was inherently morally wrong, or just had preferences incompatible with mainstream society. I mean, is murder inherently immoral or do some people just need to murder and that's their preference? Obviously the example doesn't work as well with murder but the points the same: being that at some point in order to have a society, it's necessary to make known what is right and wrong, for the sake of being a part of that society.
And yeah, morals and values do change over time, but we've also managed to establish more of our morals (I believe so anyway) on a scientific foundation rather than just our ideals. So we make laws to protect people against harm and punish those who do harm and those laws are arguably moral laws as well as practical laws. And as we understand more about psychology, physiology, sociology, even the science of government, we are in a far better position now to say what is right on wrong than we were at the beginning of civilization. We move backwards too, unfortunately, and make laws solely on our ideals. But some feel that without doing so you create an amoral society where anything goes and at some point you have to just start saying what is right and wrong then you have just a nihilistic society with no sense of direction.
And then straying off topic a bit, then you start getting into the role of government. Since a part of government's role is to make and enforce laws, they couldn't always make laws just on the basic of science and cost/benefit analyses. Somewhere along the line you have to state to some degree that this is how things SHOULD be and not just declare this is how they are. Unfortunately, today, too many people state how society should be without acknowledging the obvious ways in which we are, and then managing the costs of those realities.
I think the issue I was taking with what you said though, was whether he was inherently morally wrong, or just had preferences incompatible with mainstream society. I mean, is murder inherently immoral or do some people just need to murder and that's their preference? Obviously the example doesn't work as well with murder but the points the same: being that at some point in order to have a society, it's necessary to make known what is right and wrong, for the sake of being a part of that society.
And yeah, morals and values do change over time, but we've also managed to establish more of our morals (I believe so anyway) on a scientific foundation rather than just our ideals. So we make laws to protect people against harm and punish those who do harm and those laws are arguably moral laws as well as practical laws. And as we understand more about psychology, physiology, sociology, even the science of government, we are in a far better position now to say what is right on wrong than we were at the beginning of civilization. We move backwards too, unfortunately, and make laws solely on our ideals. But some feel that without doing so you create an amoral society where anything goes and at some point you have to just start saying what is right and wrong then you have just a nihilistic society with no sense of direction.
And then straying off topic a bit, then you start getting into the role of government. Since a part of government's role is to make and enforce laws, they couldn't always make laws just on the basic of science and cost/benefit analyses. Somewhere along the line you have to state to some degree that this is how things SHOULD be and not just declare this is how they are. Unfortunately, today, too many people state how society should be without acknowledging the obvious ways in which we are, and then managing the costs of those realities.
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