Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
Again, only true if you believe in absolutes of right and wrong. It doesn't matter what the act or behavior is, the law of society (whether written down or not) is what determines what is right or wrong based on the morals and ethics of that society.
It's no different than what I said about criminals -- for them (individually) what they do is right to them.
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I don't believe in absolutes of right or wrong. So, I agree with you to some extent, in that it was right for people to keep slaves in certain historical contexts from their point of view - i.e. they saw it as right. We see it as wrong, from our point of view, because we don't share the outlook of their society (perhaps we see the slaves as equally human and they didn't, for example).
However, I don't agree that the majority view is synonymous with morality. Each of us has a moral outlook which, although shaped by society, may deviate from or even oppose its views. So, I think it makes sense to say that "people think X is OK, but it's wrong" even if the majority think that X is not wrong. So, "people think that copyright infringement is OK, but it's wrong" would make sense even if the prevailing view was that is was, in fact, OK.
Also, there are constants across human societies due to our common biology. Much of the moral shift has been in defining what counts as the in-group and out-group, as opposed to what counts as appropriate behaviour towards each. So, although there are no absolutes "out there" inscribed in the fabric of the universe, human biology constitutes a kind of absolute (or a slowly evolving absolute, perhaps) that constrains the moral positions that are adopted.