Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Thornton
There was some interesting research on morality which suggested that across cultures there were two broad types of view. One, that we might call "conservatives" emphasised the need to follow social rules in defining what was good/bad. The other, which one might call "liberal" (less common and more recent historically) emphasised whether individuals suffered in defining what was good/bad. An example they gave was gay marriage where the conservative view is bad (breaks the social rules), while the liberal view is good (avoids them suffering). It seemed an interesting analysis to me, and a way of trying to understand what might be going on with the opposing point of view in a moral argument.
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Yes, Star Trek's Mr. Spock asked the question: "Does the good of the many out-weigh the good of the few (or the one)?"
Some say that the one-dimensional "conservative-liberal" model is a bit limited, and a two-dimensional model makes things more clear:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3ac.html#axis