16 Jun '16 09:38>
Originally posted by robbie carrobiePeople's consciences are diverse. I don't deny that societies have national and international laws and that these create a reality and that people can be, and are, punished, according to those laws. I don't deny that people may for the most part support those laws. But I cannot agree that a consensus, by its very nature, as you put it, is not subjective but objective. I think a consensus is only reached by people's subjective views overlapping and reaching a critical mass.
We share with almost every human being the natural faculty of conscience which we are free to exercise. This has produced a shared objective reality enshrined in national and international law.
With murder, the only objective reality is that there is a law forbidding murder is on the books. The consensus in society that it is right for the law to be on the books is the result of the amalgamation and combination of the predominant subjective views of the society's members.
If the law instead said (because a consensus emerged that supported it): murder is forbidden except in the case of (say) revenge for adultery, what is the nature of the "objective reality" in such a society? That murder in the case of revenge for adultery is - objectively speaking - still wrong, or that it is - objectively speaking - no longer wrong?