Originally posted by Scrimshaw
My critique:
I just read the whole debate and I think both sides made some mistakes. Knight's mistake was he said that they did not need to establish any particular moral behavior as absolutely right or wrong.....but then spent the rest of the debate doing just that - trying to establish that the specific moral behavior of kidnapping/raping/murdering a child is absolutely wrong. At worse, this was mistake of misspeak, double-speak, etc. A blunder no doubt, but not serious enough to undermine his position in the debate.
All Knight did was assert that there are absolute morals. Both parties agreed that for absolute morals to exist, a source/standard for such morals would have to exist. Knight never tried to build a case for the existence of such, and all he did toward building a case for absolutes was ask Zakath to show any circumstance where murder, rape or kidnapping was not absolutely wrong. He did so -- in rather dramatic and nearly farcical fashion, but he did so nonetheless. Of course, the Christians discounted his scenario as extremely unlikely, but Knight hadn't asked for a likely scenario, he had asked for a
possible scenario. Thus, much to Knight's and his followers' chagrin, Zakath answered the question. In scoffing, Zak's critics claimed that one murder to save many was still absolutely wrong, thereby suggesting that allowing the deaths of many to save one was not absolutely wrong -- which itself undermined their own position that murder is absolutely wrong. Still, once Zakath answered Knight's question, it was incumbent upon Knight to come back with a new approach to building a case of absolutes. He didn't. At best, his one approach -- making an assertion and then asking Zakath to provide an exception -- could, at a stretch, be seen as an extremely weak attempt to build a case for moral absolutes.
Zakath's error was more serious. When responding to Knight's moral example of kidnapping/raping/murder, he tried to provide an elaborate scenario where the perpetrator of the act was a hero, not a criminal. However, in that scenario, Zakath explained that the reason the terrorist was committing this retribution was because he was very upset that an Arab diplomat (the little girl's father) had ordered the torture and killing of the terrorist's wife and infant son. But in Zakath's zeal, he totally overlooked the obvious fact that the terrorist obviously felt that the torture and "murder" of his wife and infant son was morally - WRONG!
This doesn't automatically suppose that the terrorist believed it was morally wrong. It does mean the terrorist was mightily upset that he suffered the personal loss of something he didn't want to lose. If my wife were to leave me, say, for another man, and that man hadn't actually made any overtures towards her but simply lured her by his natural personality, then I would not think that man did anything wrong, but I would still be extremely upset at him. It's a natural reaction to personal loss. Read Kubler-Ross sometime.
If he didn't believe that murder/torture were morally "wrong", why would the terrorist be upset? Why would he try to get "payback"?? The answer is obvious. In Zakath's haste to disprove a universal/absolute morality, he ends up supporting its existence with his very own example! After that moment, he had lost the debate.
See above. Since this was an entirely fictional incident, then the reason I provided is every bit as valid as the one you presented, both equally possible.
Furthermore, Knight had asked Zakath to provide any possible circumstance, in any culture, where kidnapping/murdering/raping purely for sadistic pleasure would be considered morally "right". Zakath completely dodged that very critical question at least three times, totally failing to answer it. His lack of answer gives a strong implication that no such circumstances could ever exist, and therefore, universal/absolute morality does exist.
If it the condition "purely for sadistic pleasure" were included as part of the query, then Zakath wouldn't need to answer it. The inclusion of a condition like that already makes it relativistic. By including the condition, Knight would have already admitted, without knowing it, that the condition would be needed to establish a seemingly universal wrongness, making it a case of "situational ethics," a relativist notion.
