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Originally Posted by zerospinboson
That was hardly my point. My point is that the fact that I evaluate a situation in some way or other does not mean automatically that you need see it the same way. Like I hinted at, unless there is uncontroversial proof, "murder" is just the way you describe the situation, because you don't appreciate it, whereas the perp might just see it as "his right to respond primally when he finds out his wife cheated on him".
Sure, he might be less right than you to condemn him, but when you look at Patricia's lifeboat example, the case becomes less clear.
That is, you choose to kill either one or 5 someones, and you choose to save the lives of either the one, or 5. However, "intending to bring about someone's death" is pretty close to murder 1; the fact that you save a few others might help your case, but that isn't to say that you might not have thought "hey, I dislike fat people, and that one person is fat, whereas the others are lean" (or vice versa), thus making it "easier" for you to choose to make sure the one guy dies, whereas when that 1 guy was a neurosurgeon, and those 5 were hoboes, you might have chosen differently.. "Murder" is not straightforward, and whether you're exonerated or not will depend heavily on the circumstances. If you disliked the single person, and you tell the jury about that, you might still be (rightly) convicted for that.
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Still seems like semantics to me I'm sorry. You may see a situation differently to me, I might not appreciate a murder the same way a murderer does, etc etc. My murder example was an attempt to give a clear cut situation and instead of answering with respect to that situation you choose to debate the semantics about what constitutes the situation.
Patricia's life boat example, as I said in a previous post, is more to do with justifiable killing than it is to do with premeditated, wilful and reasonless murder. Therefore it has nothing to do with my example.
As I said to tompe, if you honestly think a moral code can consist of nothing more than "I can do whatever I like and if I say it is good then it is", then our viewpoints are so far apart that no true discourse could be possible. There are always going to be delusion people who are wired wrong(for lack of a better way to put it) who think anything is ok simply because they say it is. I don't think it can reasonably be argued that that viewpoint can truly be considered a "moral code". If you do think that viewpoint constitutes a vaild moral code then we have no basis for discussion.
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Originally Posted by zerospinboson
Similarly with "piracy"/"file copying" or "file sharing". The names reflect how you see the thing. I, for instance, could care less about authors like Stephen King or Rowling, and my depriving them of a buck or two, either by not reading their output, (as I do) or by downloading an unauthorized copy (like someone else might), whereas in the case of academic literature, or a good Dostoevsky translation, I might care, because I think it has added value, and is not just interchangeable, cursory-read-at-most, trash.
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See this sounds more like a way of justifying to me but maybe I'm missing something.
I know we can all find ways to justify what we want to do. That's not really what I'm discussing at all as that is self evident.
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Originally Posted by zerospinboson
You might feel differently, either because of the fact that I have a take on piracy that says that in some cases I find it rather less excusable than in others, or because you really, really like rowling and think she should become more of a billionaire out of your pocket; both responses are fine, but again, they're your take on the matter, not "your take+"the absolute moral truth"".
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Never said it was the absolute truth actually. I was debating whether the act of file sharing would be wrong if one was unable to justify it with the usual arguments. The debate then moved on to whether there are absolutes when it comes to morality.
Cheers,
PKFFW