Reply To: Isis vs. klal yisrael

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Beniguman, You said,

“Meaning, there is no objective, outsider, point-of-view that can be used to examine the actions and positions of any group from a moral perspective. Our morals and values are shaped by the society we are brought up and reside in. Very little, if anything, can be said to be objectively bad.”

You can judge “morality” of a group or ideology objectively by looking at it and seeing if it imposes suffering on the world or does the opposite. If it decreases suffering you can call it “moral” if it increases it then it is “immoral”. So if an ideology says to kill a million people, or wound them etc. etc. or increases the suffering of the population that carries it then that ideology can be called “objectively immoral” no matter what it’s reason for imposing that suffering is.

It gets slightly more complicated when it comes to things that claim to cause suffering in the short term to specific people in order to alleviate it in the future for the society at large.

The key here would be that if you can do something without causing suffering and you choose the way that causes suffering then that would be immoral: For example; if you have a thief and you can educate him not to steal (which will cause less suffering) or lock him in Jail for 20 years, or chop off his head etc. (which would cause more suffering) then taking the second choice would be immoral. (letting him steal from victims would also cause more suffering then educating him not to steal, so here educating him would be more moral then just ignoring the situation)

Visiting an old lady in the hospital or feeding a poor person, or educating a child are all things that cause less suffering in the world and could be called moral