Moral Norms : The Lord 's Sovereign Rule

Moral absolutism is a moral view that certain actions are inherently right or wrong. Moral absolution, in more depth, is a belief that there are established standards against moral questions that can be judged and certain actions are considered right or wrong. Absolutism represents that ethics and morals come from within the laws of the universe, the nature of humanity, the will of God. Moral absolutists base their decision on “what is right” in the eyes of God and humanity.

Ethical systems are complex and difficult to determine what one best describes a person’s individual belief systems. After review of the textbook, I believe that I best subscribe to the ethical system of graded absolutism. This posting will provide a brief defense of my personal ethical systems beliefs as well relevant examples to support it. Hicks and Hicks (2014) describe graded absolutism as, “In this ethical system, one is obligated to follow a higher moral law. If there are two laws that conflict with each other morally, the one that is higher should be chosen.” (p. 111). This view accepts that as humans we are forced to make decisions that might require compromise within our own moral systems as part of decision-making. Choosing

Moral Absolutism is concerned with right and wrong behavior. The absolute is what controls whether the action or behavior is right or wrong. Therefore, from the position of moral absolute, some things are always right and some things are always wrong no matter how one try to rationalize them. Moral absolutism materializes from a theistic worldview. Ethical Absolutists can condemn practices such as the Nazi harassment of the Jews because Absolutist views give definite guidelines as to what is right and wrong.

The first concept, unqualified absolutism, does not consider the fact that belief in Christ does not shift the responsibility to God for it grasps the moral law to complete and non-conflict. Moral conflict is merely a mistaken perception, for God always provides a way out of sin. The viewpoint is to be respected as it trusts in God’s faithfulness and refuses to let the end explain the meaning. There are religious conflicts that must be addressed like those who promise to complete absolutism and will probably hold off on telling the truth but never actually lie, instead looking toward God to provide a way of escape. This ethical system argues that all moral laws are absolute and should never be broken.

Masters and slaves are constantly discussed throughout Nietzsche’s work, but the connection between them is discussed best in his book On the Genealogy of Morality. The first of the three essays outlines two alternate structures for the creation of values, which is credited to masters and the other to slaves.

“Conflict Resolution is an essential element of life, but a task filled with so many diverse issues, that not many can engage in it without feeling a bit unprepared. Through the grace of God we have been given a wonderful ministry of reconciliation and direct commands to live at peace with others”. (Nemitz, 2013) In 1 Corinthians 10:31, the Apostle Paul teaches that conflict provides opportunities to glorify God, to serve others, and to grow to be like Christ. This concern for faithfulness to God, compassion and mercy towards others, and righteous behavior is echoed throughout Scripture. In Michah 6:8 we are told, “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does

Belk provides a great outline of the differing major ethical systems along with breaking down the opposing absolutism’s. In addition to this, Belk states that a belief in moral conflicts defaults one to agree with graded absolutism. As Geisler points out, each absolute moral law is traceable to one of God’s unchangeable moral attributes (Geisler, 2010, p. 108). For Christians Isaiah 40:8 (NIV) says, “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.” Because God’s word endures for ever, it is not changing which helps to further confirm that the moral laws God has put forth are absolute and will not change. Rodrigues describes the moral laws as those that are unchanging, based upon God’s character and apply

Spikes from examiner.com describes graded absolutism as in moral conflicts, the dilemma is not that we are obligated to opposites, because greater absolutes are not opposites of lesser absolutes, and evil is not the opposite of good but, is instead the privation of good and since evil is the privation of good, only the privation of the greater good counts as evil, since whenever there is a moral conflict, we are only obligated to the greater good (Spikes, 2011). Unlike the other absolutisms, graded absolutism focuses on the moral laws as being absolute. The essential principles of graded absolutism are these: there are many moral principles rooted in the absolute moral character of God, there are higher and lower moral duties, moral laws sometimes come into unavoidable moral conflict and in

The introduction of Alan Hunt’s Governing Morals: A Social History of Moral Regulation presents an overview of the many theoretical debates and resources spawned by the concept of ‘moral regulation’ – an ideology prevalent in the 1980’s which can be defined as a practice of governing in order to focus attention on social actions which attempts to influence the conduct of human agents. Through Hunt’s introduction case studies are utilized in paving the path for his discussion on moral regulation examining three British studies fluctuating from the Society for the Reformation of Manners which was active around the 1700’s, to Victorian aged sexual panics which allows for significant insight on early moral regulation projects. Although Hunt discusses multiple contentious issues on the concept of moral regulation, an isolation of some fundamental points in his

Morality: it is a term that is questioned at every corner of every day. The moral idea ranges from something small such as helping an old women cross the street, to the extreme such as the recent actions taken by politicians to limit public union rights in Wisconsin. Dictating the difference between right and wrong has been an issue that dates to the times before Christ, where the idea of moral perfection was used to determine one’s right of passage into heaven. It was not until Benjamin Franklin, who published a guide within of his autobiography, describing thirteen steps to achieving moral perfection. Franklin used these morality milestones to thrive in living a successful life and eventually become one of the founding fathers of the

Philosophers base the idea of objective morality on the assumption that some moral ideals are universal and should be the moral responsibility of everyone. Subjective moralists counter this argument by explaining that each moral decision is independent because each moral situation is unique to its own conditions. Ultimately, these two views shape the nature of moral philosophy and theology, each describing the different natures of morality (Hammond). These two theories have a large impact on the thinking process of humans on an everyday basis. This process then leads up to a person valuing different things more than others. The separation of objective and subjective theories all boil down to whether or not a theory is universal or not. A subjective theory has an absence of universal truths, and an objective theory has universal truths. Two vary popular theories that will take part in my research were the Divine Command Theory, and Natural law theory. Two theories that may seem similar, but in fact are very different.

The ethical theory of moral absolutism has raised many arguments since Plato produced the Theory of the Forms. Philosophers have argued over it for centuries; whether it is correct, whether we should be absolutists or relativists or whether we bypass both of these theories and decide our actions based on virtuous people.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler sent over six million jews to death camps, making this one of the largest, and most known, genocides in the world. But, Hitler thought he was doing the right thing, and believed it was for the greater good. We believe he was wrong, but who is to say he was, and who is to say we are correct? What makes us believe we’re right? Setting aside religion/beliefs, and the way you were raised, what is right and wrong? Is there some sort of higher power that sets those laws before hand and causes us to be who we are? Better yet, what makes humans, human? As most philosophers say, this is called the Absolute Law of Morality, but who is to say this ‘law’ exists?

Moral relativism is the philosophy that moral or ethical propositions do not represent moral truths, but are effected by the environment in person’s life. Christians have a worldview that believes otherwise based on the biblical worldview of what is right and wrong proposed by James Sire. Issues that are ethically questionable but not specifically banned in Leviticus, or in the Bible in general, such as gambling, drinking alcohol, and divorce are examples of how even seemingly unclear topics are still outlined by God. The Lord gives Christians the instinctive knowledge of right and wrong based on Scripture that does not and will never change, contradictory to the constantly evolving culture that is moral relativism.

An employee of a specific business doing what they are told so that they will not be scolded and eventually fired.