Reply #49: Subjectivity is a dangerous argument. [View All]

[SidneyCarton]

Following this line of reasoning the Iraq war was justified because those in command thought so, torture is both justifiable and necessary because those who had the authority to order it did so, and those ordered to carry it out chose to obey. Furthermore, the Holocaust may thereby be justified as it was carried out by people who felt that cleansing Europe to make it a homeland for their Aryan offspring was the right thing to do.

Perhaps you are right and there is no higher morality, no greater arbiter of right and wrong than our own conscience, but if so then law, crime and the imposition of social order are all merely the fetters placed on the freedom of man to follow his own desires, regardless of the damage, pain, suffering or horror that he might inflict upon his fellows. I cannot feel comfortable with such a conclusion.