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utsfl:classroom:seminars:pba221h [2020/05/26 18:55] – mmccannutsfl:classroom:seminars:pba221h [2020/05/28 18:06] (current) – mmccann
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 Conversational: Counter-examples. Ask, do you think there's //anything// that is always wrong? Conversational: Counter-examples. Ask, do you think there's //anything// that is always wrong?
 +
 +<note>
 +Student: There's no such thing as right and wrong.
 +
 +Caleb VDW: Is that right...?
 +
 +Student: **visibly confused**
 +
 +</note>
  
 ==== “We have to be tolerant, and that means respecting other opinions in morality” ==== ==== “We have to be tolerant, and that means respecting other opinions in morality” ====
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 Student: **visibly confused** Student: **visibly confused**
 </note> </note>
 +
 ==== “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one.” ==== ==== “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one.” ====
 False.  False. 
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 Conversational: Again, regardless of where morality comes from, the point is [//go through the human rights argument//]. Conversational: Again, regardless of where morality comes from, the point is [//go through the human rights argument//].
 +===== Moral Nihilism? =====
 +
 +No morality? =Moral Nihilism
 +
 +Definition: The person who believes there are no right and wrong in ANY case. 
 +e.g., lynching blacks historically, anti-Semitism, persecution of homosexuals, child pornography, et cetera, are not really bad. 
 +
 +Fun fact: People aren’t really moral nihilists (under normal conditions i.e., not being a psychopath). E.g. try cutting them off in line in the grocery store--they will suddenly react as if morality exists...
 +
 +However...This does not mean that you will be able to persuade everyone. 
 +This is the “ultimate difficulty” in dealing with relativists and/or nihilists. 
 +->  Just as you can deny your sense experience, so you can deny your moral experience.  
 +
 +There //is// a right and wrong, and therefore moral relativism is false
 +
 +> “…the problem is that objective values do exist, and deep down we all know it. There's no more reason to deny the objective reality of moral values than the objective reality of the physical world…if moral values are gradually discovered, not invented, then our gradual and fallible apprehension of the moral realm no more undermines the objective reality of that realm than our gradual, fallible perception of the physical world undermines the objectivity of that realm. Most of us think that we do apprehend objective values.”
 +-William Lane Craig, //Does God Exist?//
 +
 +**I am worried: If I can’t prove morals exist, should I believe in them?**
 +
 +“…God can be invisibly and inaudibly present, and the fact that the world cannot see him does not prove very much.”
 +-Kierkegaard, Works of Love
 +
 +Maybe this can help us as pro-lifers: //Moral experience// can be real, and the fact that the world does not experience it does not prove very much.
 +
 +(Think about great literature here, Jonas seeing colour, Winston seeing life beyond Big Brother, Ivan Ilyich realizing death, Faust realizing the deadliness of submitting to evil, et cetera; and think about history here, Mother Teresa saw the intrinsic value among the lowest and poorest human beings, Martin Luther King saw equality when no one else did, Maximillian Kolbe gave his life out of love when no one else would step in to save the Death Camp prisoner; think about **Jesus** here)
 +
 +<note important>But remember: In conversation, we do not want to get into (unless you have to) a philosophical discussion about morality; you want to establish that the wrongness of abortion consists of the violation of a pre-born human being’s right to life.
 +</note>
 +
 +
 +