I did set up with the assumption that we did have god like powers, and so the morality question was with the hypothetical scenario of knowing what would happen, is it more moral to let him live, or die?

If I alter his image a little will it make it easier to decide?

Just thought of a plot for a movie following on from the above premise...

Clairvoyant sees young Adolf's future, knows without a doubt what he becomes in this and every possible alternate universe... Kills child. Word spreads child was killed by a Jew who was trying to use the child's body as sacrifice to Yahweh Old Testament style to advance the cause of Zionism. A relative or close neighbour grows up with a hatred of Jews above that of 'normal' Austrian anti-Semitism... Starts up anti-Semitic political movement, changes his name to Adolf Hitler in memory of dead child and the rest is.... 'history'. The greater karma of the German nation could not be avoided.

Let's say that you were driving home 10km above the speed limit, and that resulted in you having a vehicle crash that caused a fatality.

Hey, but absolute morality says "thou shalt not kill"

Well thou certainly didst kill, but thou claimest that thou didst not mean it   Society may take the view that if you deliberately flouted the law, then you committed the act of homicide by default.

Ok, we'll change it to 60km above the speed limit. Maybe you could make the argument that your reckless behaviour was more clearly related to the final outcome.

Add to that the fact that you had been drinking, and were too intoxicated to realise that driving would be too great a risk.

It all comes down to risk factors. We take risks all the time in life, and sometimes the 'gamble' doesn't always pay off.

A lot comes down to whether society standards agree with your personal risk assessment or not.

An absolute moral code in which everybody who causes the death of a person, is treated the same, is clearly not viable.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Jan 27^th, 2010 at 10:23am:


I'm talking more about absolute religious codes. In parts of Sudan, if you accidentally killed somebody as a result of a motor vehicle accident, you would be fortunate to escape with your life. In some other parts of Africa it takes a great deal of bribery to get out of a similar situation, even if it was not your fault.

It's when you have highly inflexible, generally religion based morality like that where you get the most unreasonable, the least just and the most immoral outcomes.

muso wrote on Jan 27^th, 2010 at 8:50am:



Gee, who knew it was just actuary all along.

Like Woody Allen says, it's like anything...


Thanks Muso.

I know that Justice and morality are distinct concepts, but they are pretty deeply intertwined.

Was I?  Which particular gallery was that? The anti-islamic gallery ? The racist gallery? the religious gallery, the atheist gallery? you've got me stumped.