Absolute Morality Defined

Perhaps I should have started with the definition of absolute morality. Then again - perhaps not. The definition of absolute morality is straight forward. These definitions are taken from M-W. They are the most appropriate for this blog:

Absolute - "having no restriction, exception, or qualification"
Morality - "a doctrine or system of moral conduct"

Merging these definitions in a very literal fashion (and reversing their order) we get:

"a doctrine or system of moral conduct having no restriction, exception, or qualification"

The first part "a doctrine or system or moral conduct" in its simplest form is a set of rules that define boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. The second part "having no restriction, exception, or qualification" infer that it (the morality) applies in all circumstances. Buried in this discourse is a rather subtle but important assumption.

That assumption is that absolute morality applies only to humans capable of understanding the concepts. In other words, if you cannot communicate the concept of morality it's doubtful if you can understand it. If you can't understand the concepts then they can't be applied. So we're assuming humans that can communicate. In all likelihood, these humans come from societies.

We must make these assumptions since we have used words to communicate the concepts and we must assume the reader (or listener) must be able to understand what we're saying. I assume that these communication skills are a product of societies. More to the point, I don't believe communication skills can exist without societies.

Without this assumption this discussion (or any discussion for that matter) makes little sense and I'm reasonably certain is not possible. So, it's very difficult to assume communication without assuming humans and society. So now we can write a more precise and lengthy definition of absolute morality:

Absolute morality is a set of rules defining acceptable, or unacceptable behavior applying to all humans in all societies for all time.

There are a few important things to note here. Nothing implies that all rules are absolute. To be precise, nothing in this definition excludes additional "non-absolute" rules. The only restriction is that, if absolute morality exists, supplemental rules cannot contradict or override the rules of the absolute type. This contradiction would, by definition, create and exception to the absolute rule. And then the absolute rule then fails the definition of absolute morality and is therefore not absolute.

Of course this thinking yields a systematic approach to testing any notion of absolute morality. If all rules thought to be part of absolute morality can be found to have exceptions then we can conclude one of three things:

1. Absolute morality does not exist
2. The rule(s) must be modified to eliminate the exceptions
3. We have the wrong set of rules (an extreme case of #2)

But we have at least one other condition to satisfy. We must be able to communicate the rule or rules to all societies. If the rule cannot be successfully communicated then we have one or more issues to contend with:

1. The people communicating lack the requisite skill
2. The language(s) employed lack an ability to express the ideas
3. The group with whom we are attempting to communicate are not humans or do not constitute a society