You're talking about of both sides of your mouth. Child rape is immoral because it's wrong. You agree it's wrong, but in the next breath say morality cannot be immutable or universal. So which is it?
A single instance of something being wrong doesn't make morality at large immutable or universal. It's like saying "I don't like pork. Pork is meat. Therefore I don't like meat."
Child rape isn't wrong because "pretty much everyone agrees" it's wrong.
I didn't say it was wrong because pretty much everyone agrees its wrong. I said that pretty much everyone agrees it's wrong.
It's immoral because, based on your common sense, a reasonable person knows it's wrong to harm a child.
Why? Why is it wrong to harm a child? You are making the point that morality is absolute, so common sense has nothing to do with it. What's the inherent reason that makes you say that it's wrong to harm a child? There's a ton of things you could give as the reason. I want to understand what your understanding of morality is, and what causes you to say it's absolute and immutable.
Same with the other things I mentioned: child abuse, elder abuse, etc. You don't want to talk about those, because you know there isn't a reasonable argument to say it is not flat out wrong (or immoral) to abuse an elderly person, a disabled person, etc.
No, that's not why. It's because if we use examples where the answer is clear-cut, we gain little insight. But if you insist, I can play the devil's advocate. I'll start right now:
Abusing elders is perfectly fine. They've lived a full life, and once they reached a certain age, they need to have any valuable nutrients and organs extracted, and they must be euthanized and incinerated to make room for the rest of us. Why is this stand immoral?
I'm not a moral skeptic. Most people are not. When you start talking about things that are unquestionably immoral, like child rape, skepticism disappears. Except for people who belong to NAMBLA . . . .
Right. And
that's why I wanted to use other examples. I stated it pretty clearly: "
And that is the problem: it's something pretty much everyone agrees with. Which is why such cases don't serve as good examples and have little probative value in the context of this debate. So perhaps we could use another example, that showcases moral ambiguity?"
There are things that fall into gray areas, but that doesn't change the fact that there are absolutes. You just agreed with one.
If there are gray areas, then morality cannot be absolute because a
single instance of an item that falls in this gray area makes morality non-absolute. For morality to be absolute there must not be
any grey areas
at all and everything must be clearly either moral or immoral. In more mathematical terms, given the equation "
x / x = 1" the answer "
x = 0" is enough to show that it isn't true; to show that it's true, it's not enough to say "
well, it's valid for 1 and 2 and 3 and ... 541894891894501041487956 67 and 541894891894501041487956 68 and ...". You must show that's it's true for
EVERY number.
Now, what I agreed with is that pretty much everyone finds certain acts to be immoral and heinous. That's a fact, but that doesn't make morality itself absolute. See the "
x / x = 1" example above of why it doesn't.
As for those who don't find those acts immoral and heinous - sometimes it is because they are insane and other times because their particular morality is different somehow. Let's ignore the people who are insane, since there's no point in discussing about them. Let's talk about the other group. Consider a group of people, who have, for all their recorded history, gathered all the males of age and had them engage in fights to the death to decide who will marry the chief's daughter and become the new Chief. The daughter has no say in the matter. And how many immoral acts do you see with this setup? And why are they immoral?
Regarding victims, anytime a person does something that violates that person's conscience, they have compromised their belief system. There doesn't have to be some physical manifestation of "harm." What could (and probably often does) happen is rationalization, which leads to more compromise.
Now who's talking out of both sides of the mouth? You said there's no victimless sins, now you're talking about compromising and violating a person's conscience. Nobody is forcing the Catholic couple in my example to use birth control. It's a sin according to Catholic doctrine, so when they do it, according to you there's a victim. Who is it? Nobody is forcing you to pump one off in the shower thinking about your neighbors' wife. It's a sin according to the Bible, so when you do it, according to you there's a victim. Who is it?
And to take one more step: are
all sinful acts immoral? And, conversely, are
all immoral acts sins?