Decimator wrote:Lindir The Green wrote:"Natural" and "Inalienable" rights are just names given to the morals of a society. Different society, different morals. Almost everyone agrees with the morals of the society they were raised in, and almost everyone thinks that their morals are "right."
Everything is subjective, unless you believe in God. But God is also subjective.
The end result of this kind of thinking is death. What right do you have to fight back against someone who wants you dead? Morals are subjective, so why is it acceptable for you or a policeman to kill him, but not for him to kill you? Further, would it then not be acceptable for China to genocide Caucasians? If their population thinks we deserve to die, and since they have far more people than us, who are we to say otherwise?
It is acceptable because I and my society accept it. China might think it is acceptable to genocide Caucasians, but Caucasians (generally) don't, so they can argue and fight back. Neither side is "absolutely right," because in my opinion there is no absolute rightness. But both sides are relatively right, because they are right as defined in their society.
Everyone is relatively right, because they (almost always) agree with themself. To prosper, one also has to agree with the basics of the morals of their society, which are there so that the society can exist. Only the societies with certain sets of morals can survive.
A set of morals that sometimes involves stoning of little girls conflicts with the set of morals in my society, and so I consider it wrong, but I can't consider it evil, because it perfectly follows the moral code of the society, and it might even be good for the society (or else the society would have been destroyed by some other, similar society.)
All of this is IMO, and I think it's correct, and I can try to argue it, but I can't say that it is absolutely correct, that the universe wills it to be correct. Well, I could, but I would find the statement incorrect.