Are there absolutes - moral or otherwise?

Yes of course. We live with yes, and no all the time, why not with morals. There is such thing as Absolute Truth, even saying there is no such things, appeals to the idea that there is. Relativism doesn't make sense!

MrCool1978: Is it wrong to steal a car to drive to the hospital if you have no phone and find a seriously injured child alongside the road?

Is it wrong to kill a person if that is the only way to prevent them from killing 5 innocent people?

Now what's this about stealing and killing being wrong?

You can't issue absolute commands like "killing is wrong" or stealing is wrong," as these examples demonstrate. Such an absolute command would either have to have so many exceptions that it could not reasonably be called "absolute" or it would be so general as to lead to bad outcomes, like not killing murderers to defend innocent lives. I do in fact think there is one moral absolute - "do not cause unnecessary suffering." But most moral absolutes, like those cited by mrcool, are not in fact absolutes.

Tim: I don't think you can jump from descriptive absolutes regarding the nature of things to normative absolutes. Even if metaphysical absolutes exist, that doesn't make ethical absolutes any more or less probable. They are two different categories.

Absolutely!

Yes, there must be at least one absolute. Consider this: Either there is at least one absolute or there are no absolutes. If there are no absolutes, then this also cannot be an absolute. Therefore, either at least one absolute exists or the potential for at least one absolute exists, since the absolute nonexistence of absolutes is logically impossible. Yet even this is an absolute, for we are stated the absolute potential for absolutes. At the very least, there must be an absolute only absolute, which is by definition the only absolute and by its existence nullifies any other potential absolutes. This is the least that is logically required.

However, this, while logically possible, seems absurd. To suppose that there is only one absolute and that this absolute declares there are no other absolutes is highly improbably. Therefore, the existence of other absolutes, including moral absolutes, becomes probable, if not logically required.

The question can't be answered except in absolutes.

Begs the question.

Johnslat, that article hinges its argument on induction, how does that bring us to absoultes? You might as well infer objectivity without evidence, since the evidence alone doesn't make that leap of faith.

"The vast areas of agreement between moral codes of different societies throughout the ages and throughout the world is strong evidence that these moral norms were discovered in light of an unchanging and objective set of moral principles that find their source in the realities of human existence"

The Pope's proposition for universality was close to Kant's argument that we all share the same human faculty of Reason.

Do we? It's going to take alot to convince me the categorical imperitive has merit.

I don't think we need deductive certainty to navigate the world... We've never really had it before, nor do I think we ever will. Holding out judgment until we find that is going to keep everyone looming in doubt and skepticism. It's not helpful for praxis. Though I know, rhetorically -- announcing you have the pure and only Truth is the best way to lead a herd who do so unquestioningly... I suppose, is that to be our role as people today? The Anti-Machiavellian Machiavellians...

Isn't it exactly Practical --- and even in an absolutist sense -- Ethically correct, to inform people of their influence on culture, and allow them the perspective to react to their ever-changing historical conventions? If not... we will be stuck demonizing cannibals and circumcision, while those societies insist that our God of Reason is false. And we only perpetuate our division.

I do not believe there are absolutes because I also believe for every action there is a reaction. An example might be the case of good and bad taken as absolutes. I'm an animal lover yet destruction of a species might make way for a better species. Would it be bad to destory the first species or good? Someone once said there's no good or bad, only what you do.

EX: of absolutes - we all need air to breathe, to live we all need food and water. this is true for all people everywhere at all times. Gravity works the same everywhere here on the planet.

EX: one cannot be dry and wet at the same time. Something cannot be true and not true at the same time, one must be false or both, but both cannot be true. One cannot go forward and backward at the same time. One cannot live in the past and the future at the same time. Time goes forward it cannot go backward. No one is getting younger instead of older. You cannot have two Mts. Without a valley. You cannot have a stick with one end. You cannot be asleep and awake at the same time.

EX: George Washington was our first president but he no longer is. His being the first president of the US was true for all time and for all people in all places. There will never be a place at any time this is not true. He can never be the 20th president, So it is an absolute truth but for his time.

Absolutely NOT

There's absolute zero.

A Quick study in philosopy, like 'Philosophy for Dummies' will help you start your own journey , Until you decide where you want to go, my thoughts or anyone elses will not convince you that there are absoultes. I myself believe in a vast number of conservative christian absolutes> God Bless you on your search.