/lit/ - Literature

>>15763725
I find the idea of relativism unconvincing. I think there really is a set of base acceptable behaviors and then a superstructure of belief and ideology which can render actions permissible or unpermissible against the grain of core morality. Power justifies itself as easily as you breath, but it can't change every fundamental truth. It still has to grapple with a real moral center which exists in humans. Sociopaths are proof that it exists by their very exceptional nature.

The reason he brings up kids torturing animals and not adults is precisely because children are not morally developed beings. I've seen lots of children torture animals in my time, I think it's actually pretty common.

Of course I don't want to imply that "real, objective" morals are consistent or even possible to have without additionally having a moral superstructure which is more arbitrary, but there is an obviousness to certain moral judgements which don't require justification. Killing, for example, always requires context and justification, in each and every culture, even when the justification sounds evil to us, it is still done, and in those cases especially can be long and protracted.